Russia orders Estonian ambassador to leave country

The Estonian ambassador in Russia has been ordered to leave the country by 7 February.

The Russian Foreign Ministry released a statement on Monday, accusing Estonia of "total Russophobia."

It is the first ambassador Russia has expelled since invading Ukraine in February last year.

Estonia recently ordered the Russian Embassy in Tallinn to reduce its diplomats from 17 to eight by the end of January.

Ambassador Margus Laidre has been appointed to the Russian Federation since 2018, and has previously held the role in the UK and Finland.

He was working from the Estonian Embassy in Moscow, and will now be replaced with a chargé d'affaires - a diplomat of a lower rank acting in place of an ambassador.

The statement from Russia said: "In recent years, the Estonian leadership has purposefully destroyed the entire range of relations with Russia. Total Russophobia, the cultivation of hostility towards our country have been elevated by Tallinn to the rank of state policy.

"Now Estonia has taken a new unfriendly step to radically reduce the number of personnel of the Russian embassy in Tallinn, confirming the line towards the collapse of relations between our countries. As a response, the Russian side decided to downgrade the diplomatic representative in both countries to charge d'affaires."

The press release added that Laidre was summoned to the ministry on Monday where he was asked to leave the country. The statement ended by stating that the development of the two countries' relationship now lies with Estonia.

Estonia had ordered the reduction in staff numbers at the Russian Embassy in January so it matched the number of staff in the Estonian Embassy in Moscow.

In a statement on 11 January, Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu said: "Now we are setting a limit to the number of Russian diplomats working in Estonia in order to achieve parity. Today's step is in correlation with the low point of our relations in general."