SOFIA, 02 April 2022, (TON): Bulgaria’s foreign ministry said “it would expel another Russian diplomat on suspicion of spying, just two weeks after the Balkan country declared ten Russian diplomats ‘persona non grata.”

“The foreign ministry handed a note declaring the diplomatic official ‘persona non grata’, giving him a 72-hour deadline to leave the country,” the ministry said in a statement.

The move followed an alert by the Bulgarian prosecution that the diplomat, a first secretary at Russia’s embassy in Sofia was “involved in unregulated intelligence activity” by collecting “information of national importance,” the prosecution said in a statement.

Specialized prosecutors announced that two mid-level officers at Bulgaria’s counter intelligence State Agency for National Security (SANS) and a third ministerial official were being investigated for suspected spying for Russia, without giving further details.

SANS chief Plamen Tonchev said at a subsequent news conference that the two long-time officers, a sector chief and a department chief, were suspended from work after an internal investigation at the agency revealed that one of them was “working in the interest of Russia.”