Berlin is ordering 4 of the 5 Russian consulates in Germany to shut after Moscow restricted the variety of German diplomatic workers allowed in Russia, the newest in an escalating tit-for-tat diplomatic dispute between the 2 international locations.

The Russian Foreign Ministry had been informed to start out shutting down its consulates in Germany instantly and should end by the top of the yr, Christofer Burger, a spokesman for Germany’s Foreign Ministry, stated at a news convention on Wednesday.

One Russian consulate and the Russian Embassy in Berlin can be allowed to stay open. Russia at the moment operates consulates in Bonn, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Leipzig and Munich. It just isn’t clear which of the 5 will stay open.

The transfer comes after a collection of reciprocal expulsions which have whittled diplomatic workers in each international locations to the bone — a far cry from the shut diplomatic relations they shared earlier than Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine final yr.

In April, Germany expelled numerous Russian diplomats it suspected of being spies, a transfer that got here after a Russian mole was present in Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry retaliated by expelling 20 German diplomats.

Berlin stated Wednesday that it was pressured to shut German consulates in Kaliningrad, Novosibirsk and Yekaterinburg after Russia introduced final weekend that it might permit solely 350 German residents to work at diplomatic posts in Russia. Besides diplomats and embassy workers, Russia additionally considers Germans working at German cultural establishments — just like the Goethe Institute — to be a part of that quantity.

“With this, the Russian government has taken a step of escalation, and this unjustified decision forces the federal government to make a very significant cut in all areas of its presence in Russia,” Mr. Burger stated.

He added that with the newest transfer, the German authorities thought of the affair closed as a result of “personnel and structural parity” within the two international locations’ diplomatic presence had been reached.

The German Embassy in Moscow and a consulate in St. Petersburg will stay staffed.