Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Friday described the diplomat – who has been filmed leaving the shed to smoke cigarettes – as “some bloke standing in the cold on a blade of grass in Canberra”.
This week, night-time temperatures in the Australian capital have hovered well below freezing.
Russia bought the lease to the land from the Australian government in 2008, and in 2011 was granted approval to build its new embassy there.
Last week, the Australian government announced it was tearing up the lease.
“The government has received very clear security advice as to the risk posed by a new Russian presence so close to Parliament House,” Albanese told reporters.
“We are acting quickly to ensure the lease site does not become a formal diplomatic presence.”
The new laws, passed with bipartisan support, do not stop Russia from having a diplomatic footprint in Australia – only from building so close to parliament.
A Russian diplomat last week told AFP the embassy was “seeking legal advice”, while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was a demonstration of “Russophobic hysteria”.
Russia’s foreign ministry earlier this week released a list of 48 Australians who were banned from the country for propagating an “anti-Russian agenda”.
The list included journalists, government officials, and executives from local defence companies.
Source: CNA
