WASHINGTON, Jan 26 Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said that the State Department raised the issue of his departure from Washington if Russia does not issue visas to the guards of the head of the American diplomatic mission in Moscow. «In recent meetings at the State Department, our staff was clearly told that the Russian ambassador would be forced to leave the United States by April if we did not fulfill a number of US conditions for issuing visas to the guards of the American ambassador in Moscow,» Antonov told reporters. He noted that another group of diplomats had recently left the embassy. “Our comrades were forced to leave the United States. In total, during my stay here, more than 120 diplomats and employees were expelled from the United States, and together with their families, about 300 people. This is four years. And the worst thing is that I don’t see so that this negative trend changes its direction,» the ambassador said.
