U.S.-Russian tensions are being played out in the diplomatic arena, as the U.S. embassy in Moscow and the Russian embassy in Washington, D.C. are struggling to operate with reduced staff and constant expulsion of their diplomats. What should be the normal duties of foreign diplomats — traveling around the country to which they are posted, learning the culture, and meeting the people — are impossible for U.S. and Russian diplomats posted to each others’ countries as their respective governments engage in tit-for-tat retaliation over granting of visas, diplomatic real estate, and expulsion. Yesterday, part of a group of 27 Russian diplomats who were ordered to leave the U.S. by Jan. 30, left to return to Russia, while another group of 28 is scheduled to leave by June 30, The New York Post reported. Those who left were not declared persona non grata, but were warned that if they stayed beyond the departure date they were given, they would lose their diplomatic immunity and could be subject to arrest.
Russia’s Ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Antonov, reports that he, himself, may also have to leave Washington by April, unless Russia meets Washington’s demand that visas be granted in Moscow to the bodyguards of U.S. ambassador John Sullivan. “Everything that has been happening over the recent months,” he said, “only suggests that the U.S. has taken an increasingly hardline stance” on Russia’s diplomatic presence on American soil. He told RT that in the four years he’s been in Washington, a total of 300 people, including diplomats and their families, have had to leave the U.S. The situation his diplomats face is untenable, he said, as they must wrangle to get visas renewed or other documents issued.
Nor has there been any progress in gaining access to the Russian diplomatic compounds in San Francisco, Washington, New York, and Seattle that were seized between 2017 and 2018 under the Trump administration. More than 400 notes have been sent to the State Department requesting access to these compounds, to no avail, he said.