Poland expels almost all Russian diplomats - Russian Foreign Ministry

MOSCOW. March 23 (Interfax) - Poland is expelling virtually all Russian diplomats from the country, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said.

"I think that the expulsion of practically all Russian diplomats from Poland is related to this: they [Polish authorities] don't want Ukrainian citizens who have tied their fate with Russia to receive assistance and support, including on returning, on arriving to Russia," Zakharova said on the Rossiya-24 television channel.

"They are doing everything to make the situation worse for these people, possibly even punish them," she said.

"We don't know the names yet, they haven't told us. But to be honest, we don't even understand where they got this figure, given that it's slightly bigger than the one we understand to be the quantitative indicator of our diplomatic staff," she said.

"We need to understand who they are talking about before drawing any conclusions, because there are fewer diplomats than the stated figure," Zakharova said.

Earlier on Wednesday, a spokesman for Poland's Internal Security Agency, Stanislaw Zaryn, confirmed that Polish authorities had drawn up a list of 45 Russian diplomats suspected of espionage.