Russia has announced the expulsion of seven people from the Danish Embassy in Moscow in response to a similar move announced by Copenhagen four weeks earlier.

“They must leave the country within two weeks,” the Foreign Ministry in Moscow said in a statement Thursday.

The move came exactly one month after Denmark expelled 15 employees from the Russian Embassy in Copenhagen, accusing them of being intelligence agents. Denmark said it wanted to send “a clear signal to Moscow that we will not accept that Russian intelligence officers are spying on Danish soil.”

In its statement Thursday, the Russian Foreign Ministry added it had also denied a visa to a diplomat at the Danish diplomatic mission, and that it “reserves the right to take additional retaliatory steps to the unfriendly actions of Copenhagen, which will be reported to the Danish side later.”

Hundreds of European nations and other Western allies have expelled Russian diplomats and embassy staff members since Moscow launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on February 24. 
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