In March last year, Sweden became one of the European countries that announced the expulsion of Russian diplomats after the poisoning of the ex-Colonel of the GRU Sergey Skripal and his daughter in Britain. Stockholm, in particular, announced the expulsion of one diplomat.
The Russian Foreign Ministry decided to expel two Swedish diplomats from the country in response to Sweden denying diplomatic visas to several Russian Embassy employees, the Expressen newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing a Swedish Foreign Ministry spokesman.
The dispute between Russia and Sweden has been going on for several months. According to Expressen, one of the reasons for the tensions was a scandal around an embassy employee in Stockholm, Evgeny Umerenko. In February, the Swedish security services said that the latter had met with a 45-year-old Swedish citizen in a restaurant, who was then allegedly recruited by Russia. Swedish counterintelligence officers assumed that Umerenko was a member of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service.