MOSCOW, Mar 18 Russia will respond to all baseless expulsions of Russian diplomats, Foreign Ministry spokesperson says Russian Federation Maria Zakharova. «All groundless expulsions of Russian diplomats will be given an appropriate response,» Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel. Earlier, Bulgaria declared 10 Russian diplomats persona non grata, while Latvia and Estonia announced that they were expelling three employees of the Russian embassy each. Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine on February 24. President Vladimir Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years.» For this, according to him, it is planned to carry out «demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine», to bring to justice all war criminals responsible for «bloody crimes against civilians» in Donbass. According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the Armed Forces strike only at the military infrastructure and Ukrainian troops. With the support of the Russian Armed Forces, the DPR and LPR groups are developing an offensive, but there is no talk of the occupation of Ukraine, the Russian President emphasized. 35Cases of expulsions of Russian diplomats from various countries in 2021-2022
