France: Russia Told French Diplomat to Leave

Russia informed the French Ambassador in Moscow that one of France's diplomatic staffers was no longer welcome in Russia, a spokeswoman of the French Foreign Ministry said,

"We regret this unjustified decision", the ministry added in a statement when asked to confirm whether the cultural attache to the French Embassy in Moscow had been asked to leave the country.

Last week, network operator GRTgaz reported that France has not received any natural gas from Russia via pipeline since 15 June.

Gas flows to France from Germany have been stopped since June 15, France’s pipeline operator GRTgaz revealed, citing the effects of reduced Russian deliveries.

“GRTgaz remains vigilant for the coming winter and calls on shippers to continue to fill their national storage facilities as much as possible,” the grid operator, a unit of France’s main gas supplier Engie, said in a statement.

“Since June 15, GRTgaz has noted a halt in the physical flow between France and Germany. This flow was around 60 GWh/d (gigawatt-hours per day) at the beginning of 2022, which is only 10% of the capacity of the interconnection point,” it added.

The step came after French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi visited the Ukrainian capital Thursday morning.

Macron affirmed that France, Germany, Italy, and Romania are all in favor of Ukraine receiving “immediate” official candidate status to join the EU.

“All four of us support the status of immediate candidate for accession,” he said at a joint press conference in the Ukrainian capital.