Germany’s ambassador in Moscow was summoned to the Foreign Ministry on Thursday over Berlin’s expulsion of two Russian diplomats last week.
Geza Andreas von Geyr is expected to be told that Russian will take retaliatory measures, a source told the Russian state-run TASS agency.
Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the diplomatic tradition suggests “a mirror response.”
“There are unwritten practical rules, unwritten laws for such cases: you have expelled our diplomats, we will expel yours,” said Putin.
Last week, Germany expelled two Russian diplomats for Moscow’s alleged role in the murder in Berlin of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a onetime Chechen rebel commander.
Moscow calls the allegations “groundless.”
Khangoshvili fought against Russians during the Second Chechen War from 1999 to 2009, and worked in both Georgia and Ukraine against Russian interests, according to state-run German Deutsche Welle.
