Adding Slovenia to list of unfriendly states a response to its actions — envoy

"First of all, I would like to say that this decision of the government is a response to the extremely unfriendly actions of the previous government of Slovenia, taken in April this year, when the staff of the Russian embassy was reduced by almost 80%. A total of 33 employees had to leave Slovenia with their families, which effectively brought our mission’s staff down to 8 people. The today’s decision is a response to these unfriendly actions," the diplomat said.
The envoy underscored that the reduction of the Russian embassy’s staff was radical, unjustified, and unprovoked.
"[The staff reduction] led to a shutdown of the Russian cultural center here in Ljubljana, which worked here for 11 years, and generally benefitted both Russia and Slovenia by a kind of uniting our peoples via culture," he added.
The Russian government press office announced earlier that Greece, Denmark, Slovakia, Slovenia and Croatia have been included in the list of states unfriendly to Russia. Slovenia and Croatia will not be able to hire embassy employees from among people present on the Russian territory, while employment options for Greece, Denmark, and Slovakia has been limited.
Earlier in May 2021, similar restrictions were imposed on diplomatic missions of the US and the Czech Republic. The governmental list of unfriendly states is not final and can be expanded with consideration of foreign states’ hostile actions aimed against Russian diplomatic missions.