{"id":4058,"date":"2020-12-28T18:22:31","date_gmt":"2020-12-28T18:22:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=144081"},"modified":"2020-12-28T18:22:31","modified_gmt":"2020-12-28T18:22:31","slug":"russia-orders-bulgarian-diplomat-to-leave-in-tit-for-tat-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/28\/russia-orders-bulgarian-diplomat-to-leave-in-tit-for-tat-move\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia Orders Bulgarian Diplomat To Leave In Tit-For-Tat Move"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img src=\"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/9E1D91DD-1B16-4F98-AB13-4D1C0189BD13_w1200_r1.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"wsw\">\n<p>Russia says it has given a Bulgarian diplomat 72 hours to leave the country following the expulsion of its military attache in Sofia.<\/p>\n<p>In a December 28 <a class=\"wsw__a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mid.ru\/ru\/foreign_policy\/news\/-\/asset_publisher\/cKNonkJE02Bw\/content\/id\/4514602\">press release,<\/a> the Russian Foreign Ministry said it had sent the Bulgarian ambassador to Moscow a note announcing that the assistant to Bulgaria&#8217;s military attache had been declared &#8220;persona non-grata&#8221; in response to the &#8220;unjustified&#8221; removal of a Russian diplomat earlier this month.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"wsw__a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rferl.org\/a\/bulgaria-expels-another-russian-diplomat-for-spying\/31007938.html\">Bulgarian authorities on December 18 gave a Russian diplomat 72 hours<\/a> to leave the EU and NATO member state after prosecutors alleged he had been involved in espionage since 2017.<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors have said that the diplomat had &#8220;collected military information, including about the numbers of U.S. troops deployed on Bulgarian territory during exercises.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The aim was to transfer this information to Russian military intelligence, they said, adding that they had evidence the diplomat had been in contact with a Bulgarian citizen with access to classified information to whom money had been offered.<\/p>\n<p>It was the sixth case of a Russian diplomat or official at the Russian Embassy in Sofia being expelled for suspected espionage since October 2019.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\">This post was originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/2020\/12\/28\/russia-orders-bulgarian-diplomat-to-leave-in-tit-for-tat-move\/\">Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Russia says it has given a Bulgarian diplomat 72 hours to leave the country following the expulsion of its military attache in Sofia. In a December 28 press\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1102,4,24],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4058"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4058"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4059,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4058\/revisions\/4059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}