Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday described Washington’s decision to shutter Moscow’s consulate in San Francisco and trade missions in New York and Washington as a “hostile act” and a “gross violation of international law, including the Vienna Conventions.”
“We call on the American authorities to come to their senses and immediately return Russian diplomatic facilities,” the Foreign Ministry said in an online statement.
“Otherwise, the entire blame for the continuing degradation of relations between our countries, on which the state of global stability and international security largely depends, will lie on the U.S.”
On Sunday evening, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told the state-run Rossia 1 television channel that Sept 2., Russia’s deadline to close the consulate, was a “dark day in the history of American diplomacy.”