The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in the statement on Tuesday that the move is a retaliatory measure to the "unfriendly action" against a Russian diplomat in Stockholm. It neither named the diplomat nor gave any further details. The ministry added that "Stockholm bears full responsibility for the consequences of this provocation."
Yesterday, Swedish Foreign Office spokesman Johan Tegel reported that a senior official of the Embassy of Sweden in the Russian Federation was declared persona non grata.
The Swedish ministry said that the unfriendly step could be considered to be a tit-for-tat move in response to Sweden's expelling a Russian diplomat prior to that. The Russian diplomat was expelled because of actions that are "not in line with the Vienna Convention," which governs diplomatic relations, according to the report.
Relations between Russia and Sweden have deteriorated amid the strain over the Ukrainian crisis.
