Berlin:

Germany, Sweden and Poland on Monday announced that they were each expelling a Russian diplomat, in retaliation for Moscow’s expulsion last week of their diplomats for allegedly taking part in protests in support of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.

“Today the Federal Foreign Office has declared a staff member of the Russian embassy in Berlin persona non grata,” the German foreign ministry said.

Moscow’s decision to expel the three diplomats, including a German, “was in no way justified”, the ministry in Berlin said. The Swedish and Polish governments made similar announcements.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)