Italy expels 30 Russian diplomats for national security reasons

Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said Tuesday that Rome has expelled 30 Russian diplomats as part of a joint European action after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

"We have expelled 30 Russian diplomats for national security reasons," Di Miao told Italy's Rai television in Berlin, in news confirmed by the ministry in Rome.

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Di Maio said Russia's ambassador to Italy, Sergey Razov, had been summoned earlier Tuesday "to notify him of the Italian government's decision to expel" the diplomats "as 'personae non grata'".

The move follows the decision of France and Germany on Monday to expel a significant number of Russian diplomats in response to the aggression.

There has been outrage across Europe over killings in the town of Bucha near Ukraine's capital Kyiv, where dozens of bodies were found in mass graves or littering the streets over the weekend.

The Kremlin has rejected Western accusations that Russian forces were responsible.

Agence France-Presse