The State Department has informed Congress that it plans to close its last two consulates in Russia due to the limits set by Moscow on the number of diplomats allowed to enter the country.
In a letter to Congress leaders sent on Dec. 10 and obtained by The Hill, the government said it will permanently close its consulate in Vladivostok and temporarily halt work at the consulate in Yekaterinburg.
The letter confirming the closures was sent three days before news broke about a major hack by US government agencies believed to have been carried out by an elite Russian cyber-espionage unit.
The consulate’s closure is “in response to the ongoing personnel problems of the US mission in Russia in the wake of the 2017 US mission personnel cap imposed by Russia and the resulting stalemate with Russia over diplomatic visas,” the letter reads.
The chairmen of the House and Senate Credit Committees, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and some members of the State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Subcommittees of the House and Senate have signed the letter. .
The move means that the US Embassy in Moscow will be Russia’s only diplomatic installation. It also leaves the US without a diplomatic presence in a huge chunk of Russian territory, which will hinder both attempts by Americans to travel to Russia and Russians to obtain US visas.
Russia ordered the US to close its embassy in St. Petersburg as part of a diplomatic row over Moscow’s poisoning of an ex-Russian spy in Britain.
It was not immediately clear when the consulates will be closed and the workers there will be transferred to the Moscow embassy.
The reduction in the US diplomatic presence in Russia anticipates an expected shortening of relations between Washington and Moscow. While President Trump
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Laura Kelly contributed.