Italy, Spain, Denmark, Sweden and Estonia have announced the expulsion of a total of 80 Russian diplomats, following similar moves in recent days from Germany, Poland and Slovakia. The move raised the number of Russian diplomats expelled from the EU after the invasion of Ukraine to at least 300, according to Financial Times estimates. Lithuania on Monday deported the Russian ambassador to the country in protest of the apparent deaths of Ukrainian civilians at the hands of Russian troops. The large-scale, coordinated deportations represent a further attempt to isolate Russia internationally and will close more channels of communication between Moscow and the EU. They also mark the largest wave of deportations of Russian diplomats since the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in 2018 in the United Kingdom, after which Western countries expelled more than 100 Russian diplomats at the urging of London. Cumulatively, the number of Russian diplomats now being sent home from Western countries in recent days far exceeds even the largest deportations that were frequent at the height of the Cold War. The latest move against Russian diplomats came as EU finance ministers met in Luxembourg to discuss tougher sanctions in Moscow following the apparent killing of Ukrainian civilians by its troops on the outskirts of Kiev. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky began a speech to the UN Security Council on Tuesday about the alleged atrocities. Dmitry Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said he had spoken to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and urged him to use mechanisms “to gather information and hold Russian war criminals accountable”. Luigi Di Maio, Italy’s foreign minister, said during an official visit to Berlin that Rome had branded 30 Russian diplomats as undesirable. “This decision. . . “It became necessary for reasons related to our national security,” Di Maio was quoted as saying by the official Italian news agency ANSA. He added that the deportations were prompted by “the current state of crisis caused by the unjustified attack on Ukraine by the Russian Federation”. Denmark has announced separately that it is deporting 15 Russian diplomats, with Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofont calling them “a threat to our national security.” “It is in our mutual interest to maintain diplomatic ties, but we will not accept Russian espionage on Danish soil,” Kofod wrote on Twitter.

Sweden has also announced the expulsion of three Russian diplomats from the country. A senior Swedish security official said last year: “We know that every third Russian diplomat works under what we call ‘diplomatic cover’ and in fact works for one of Russia’s intelligence services.” Estonia and Latvia have both said they will close two Russian consulates on April 30 and deport 14 and 13 officials, respectively. Russian diplomats who have walked away from their positions in recent days include 40 from Germany on Monday, 45 from Poland and 35 from Slovakia. The Kremlin said on Tuesday that the expulsion of Russian diplomats was limiting the scope of diplomatic communication to unprecedented times, Russian news agencies reported, citing spokesman Dmitry Peshkov. He described the decisions as “short-sighted”.