The 27 officials of the Spanish diplomatic legation in Russia, whose expulsion was communicated to Ambassador Marcos Gómez on May 18, left the Russian capital today to be repatriated. This is stated by the Russian newspaper Izvestia on its website, which includes a video of the moment in which the Spanish diplomatic vehicles leave the Moscow Embassy building.
Sources close to the Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, consulted by the publication The Objective, point out that the Spanish diplomats declared "persona non grata" are traveling today by road to Riga, the capital of Latvia, where they will be picked up by a plane sent from Spain. . On Wednesday of last week, all of them were given a week to leave Russia, the same deadline that Russian diplomats had in April to leave Spain.
This is the most massive deportation of Spanish diplomats accredited by Moscow since the reestablishment of diplomatic relations in 1977 and is the response to the same measure adopted by the Spanish Government on April 5. Then 25 Russian diplomats and two members of the service staff of the Russian Embassy were expelled, whom Madrid considers "a threat to the security" of Spain. Currently, after those deportations, the Russian representation in Spain has been made up of 22 officials, including the ambassador, Yuri Korchagin.
Spain, together with the rest of the European Union, the USA, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Japan and other countries, adopted two sets of sanctions against Russia for the invasion of Ukraine and the Bucha massacre, among whose measures were included the expulsions of Russian diplomats. Since then, Moscow has been gradually responding in a reciprocal way.
In the case of Spain, the Russian Foreign Ministry has decided not to expel 25 Spanish diplomats, with which not one would have remained in the Embassy, but only 12, approximately half of those accredited, and complete the figure with 15 Spanish officials with a service passport or administrative staff. Which adds up to 27 in total.
But the non-diplomatic Spanish employees of the Spanish Legation in Russia have been drastically reduced. For example, in the Moscow Consulate, in addition to the deputy consul general and the consul (both diplomats), seven Spanish workers leave, which is almost the same number that stays, so that the bulk of the employees are now hired locally. Russians. This situation of a significant majority of Russian personnel also occurs at the Embassy and at the Cervantes Institute.
Of the diplomatic staff of the Embassy, among others, the Ministers of Culture, Tourism, Press and one of the members of the Economic and Commercial Office are leaving Russia. The measure has also affected the director of the Cervantes Institute in Moscow, Juan Carlos Vidal, which leaves this center very diminished, where cultural activity was previously suspended due to the pandemic.
Among the diplomats who remain and will continue to carry out their work in Russia, in addition to Gómez, the ambassador, are the consul general, María Isabel Vicandi, the consul of Saint Petersburg, Félix Valdés, the minister counselor, Agustín Núñez, and those in charge of political affairs, Javier Blanco and Tamara Zabala, in addition to the head of the Economic and Commercial Office, Alicia Varela.
The departure by road of the Spanish diplomatic officials has been due to the impossibility of having sent a plane to Moscow, since there is a ban on flying over Russian airspace for aircraft from the European Union, where in turn neither the flight of Russian and Belarusian aircraft is allowed.
However, Spain did allow the arrival of a flight to repatriate Russian diplomats in April, although it had to return to Moscow by taking a huge detour to avoid European airspace.
