Hungary expels 10 Russian diplomats over "unacceptable" activity

Filed 12h ago · Via NV · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Diplomatic Security Service from Washington, D.C., United St · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

Hungary's Foreign Ministry announced it is expelling ten employees of the Russian embassy in Budapest, with Foreign Minister Anita Orban saying their conduct was ‘unacceptable for diplomats’ under the Vienna Convention. The Russian ambassador was informed the individuals must leave the country, and the ministry called the move its largest such expulsion to date, dwarfing the single expulsion Hungary carried out in 2018 over the Skripal poisoning.

Orban was careful to add that the decision does not mean a break in diplomatic relations, saying Hungary intends to continue dialogue with Russia based on ‘mutual respect and adherence to the rules.’ The move follows new foreign policy directives approved under Prime Minister Péter Magyar's government that condemn Russian aggression and back Ukraine's territorial integrity at the UN General Assembly.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Ten diplomats getting the boot in one go is not a shrug, whatever the accompanying statement about mutual respect wants you to think. A government doesn't kick out that many people at once over a parking dispute, and calling it business as usual with Moscow the same week is like a man saying he's still on good terms with the fellow he just had removed from his porch. The gap between the size of the gesture and the softness of the language is the story here.

Source: Read the original at NV → Scored: Meatball Parade · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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