Dec 20, 2021: Russia has ordered the expulsion in response to the expulsion of two Russian envoys after a German court’s ruling that blamed Moscow for the killing of a Georgian citizen in Berlin two years ago.

Moscow has angrily rejected the Berlin court’s decision, and the Russian Foreign Ministry on Monday summoned the German ambassador to inform it of the expulsion of the diplomats, stating that the action was a “symmetrical response to the unfriendly decision by the German government”.

The ministry warned that Russia would continue to respond to any possible confrontational move by Berlin. It did not say when German diplomats would need to leave Russia.

Judges at the Berlin Regional Court on Wednesday convicted Vadim Krasikov, 56, of the murder of Zelimkhan “Tornike” Khangoshvili, , a 40-year-old Georgian man of Chechen descent. He asserted that his confession had been obtained through torture, and that his confession had been obtained through torture.

They ruled that Krasikov had acted on the orders of Russian federal authorities, who provided him with a false identity, a fake passport and the resources to carry out the killing.

“The central government of the Russian Federation was the author of this crime,” presiding judge Olaf Arnoldi said, labelling the killing “state terrorism”.

Following the court’s decision, Germany expelled two more Russian diplomats with Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock calling the state-ordered killing a “grave breach of German law and the sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Germany”.

The German foreign ministry denounced the Russian move as “completely unfounded” and noted that the Russian diplomats’ expulsion last week was “an appropriate reaction” to the court’s verdict.

The ruling, which can be appealed, marked a new in the already low Germany-Russia relations that are already fraught over Ukraine, Russian cyberattacks and Berlin’s support for Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.

The new government of German Chancellor Olaf Schulz is still trying to find a foreign policy base with Moscow, but the decision and growing tensions over Ukraine could increase domestic pressure on Germany to support the Nordstream 2 pipeline.

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