Russia will expel two Canadian diplomats in retaliation for NATO's recent expulsion of two Russian envoys from the alliance's headquarters in Brussels, the Canadian Embassy in Moscow said Wednesday, AP reported.
The director of the NATO Information Office in Moscow, Isabelle Francois, and a colleague are to be expelled, said Nicholas Brousseau, a spokesman at the embassy, where both diplomats are attaches.
Ambassador Ralph Lysyshyn was informed of the decision at a Russian Foreign Ministry meeting early Wednesday, Brousseau said. The embassy called the decision "counterproductive."
"Canada strongly regrets the decision," Brousseau told The Associated Press. "Canada and NATO allies have been seeking to re-engage Russia," he added.
Francois could not be reached immediately.
NATO last week announced it would revoke the accreditation of two members of Russia's mission to NATO allegedly over a spy scandal dating back to February.
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday withdrew from a Russia-NATO council meeting scheduled for late May in protest at the "provocative" move.
Russia had vowed retaliation for the expulsions. Its chief NATO envoy, Dmitry Rogozin, told Russian news agencies Russia's response would be "firm."
The Foreign Ministry official defended the retaliatory step. "We are not the ones to have initiated this approach. We have been forced to act in this way," Interfax quoted the official as saying.
Russia is also riled by NATO military exercises scheduled to begin Wednesday in neighboring Georgia, which fought a recent war with Russia.
Russia sees the war games as Western meddling in its rightful sphere of influence. Russian officials have accused NATO of intervention in Georgia's domestic politics by holding the exercises there.
Georgian Defense Ministry spokesman David Dzhokhadze told the Associated Press in the capital, Tbilisi, that no battlefield maneuvers were planned until at least May 11. Until then, organizational meetings would dominate proceedings, he said.
Dzhokhadze said Georgia expects 15 countries to take part in the exercises after official notification from Switzerland, Kazakhstan, Moldova and Serbia that they would not take part. He said reports of the withdrawal of Armenia - which is dependent on Russia for its economic survival - had not been confirmed.
Georgia put down a mutiny of several hundred army officers of a tank battalion near Tbilisi on Tuesday.
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