US senators demanded today, President Joe Biden, to expel 300 Russian diplomats, if Moscow does not grant more visas to Americans to represent Washington in Russia.
The proposal was submitted by the leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations and Intelligence Committees, Democrats Bob Menendez and Mark Warner and Republicans Jim Rich and Marco Rubio.
The US State Department said that in August, Russia prevented the US embassy in Moscow from staying, hiring, or contracting Russian employees or from third countries for any purpose except for guarding, forcing the mission to abandon 182 employees and dozens of contractors.
That means there are only about 100 US diplomats in Russia, the senators said, compared to the number of Russian diplomats present across the United States of 400.
"This disparity in the size of diplomatic representation is unacceptable," the senators wrote in a letter to Biden. "Accordingly, Russia should issue sufficient and equal visas between the number of American diplomats serving in Russia and their Russian counterparts in the United States," the senators wrote in a letter to Biden.
They demanded that Biden proceed to expel up to 300 Russian diplomats, if Moscow did not do so.
Relations between Russia and the United States have deteriorated significantly since 2014 and Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula.
Even during the era of former US President Donald Trump, who never concealed his appreciation for Putin, Washington intensified its sanctions against Russia.
The recent deterioration comes in light of the increasing tension between Russia and Ukraine, as the latter accuses Moscow of looking for a pretext to storm its territory, in contrast, Moscow accuses Kiev of preparing an attack against pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.