OREANDA-NEWS. The Russian Foreign Ministry announced that two Bulgarian diplomats had been declared personae non grata.

A message about this was published on the agency’s website. “This step is a response mirror measure to the unmotivated decision of the Bulgarian authorities to expel from the country in September this year two deputies of trade representative of Russia in Sofia,” the press service of the Ministry reported.

On September 23, the Bulgarian Prosecutor’s Office informed that it had collected evidence of intelligence activities of two Russian diplomats in favour of Moscow. The department clarified that since 2016, two Russians with diplomatic status have been collecting secret information about plans to modernize the Bulgarian army and military equipment. The criminal case against two Russian citizens was suspended on the basis of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Later, Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zakharieva said that the accused diplomats were declared personae non grata, they had to leave the territory of Bulgaria within 72 hours.