Russia "expressed a strong protest" to Croatia over the expulsion of 24 members of staff of the Russian embassy in Zagreb, threatening "response measures", Croatian state agency Hina said on Tuesday, citing Russia's state agency TASS.

“On April 11, the Croatian Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs notified about the decision to reduce the staff of the Russian embassy in Zagreb and expel 24 employees of the Russian diplomatic mission. We express our strong protest against this deliberately unfriendly and absolutely unfounded step, which has a destructive impact on the entire spectrum of Russian-Croatian relations,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement posted on the ministry’s website.

According to TASS, Zakharova slammed the expulsion of the diplomats as an “anti-Russian step” and stressed that responsibility for its consequences would “rest entirely on the Croatian side.”

“Response measures will follow,” she warned.

Croatia announced on Monday it would expel 18 Russian diplomats and six members of the administrative-technical staff, thus joining a number of other European countries that had done the same “due to the brutal Russian aggression against Ukraine,” the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs said.

The expelled Russian diplomats have been given until 25 April to leave Croatia, Ambassador Andrey Nesterenko told Rossiya-24 television. “That is a serious blow to our bilateral relations because the expelled diplomats are upstanding people,” he said according to TASS.