Russian diplomats to be expelled from Bulgaria

3 Russian ambassadorial officers have been accused by the Bulgarian authorities of activities allegedly contradicting their diplomatic status. The officers are supposed to leave Bulgaria within next week, Marin Raikov, Bulgaria's deputy foreign minister, told Russian ambassador Vladimir Titov on Friday. No one of the three has been declared non grata, their names being unspecified. According to RIA Novosti, analysts track the matter down to an espionage controversy of early March with secret services arresting Yani Yanev, once second in charge of the Bulgarian defence ministry intelligence, and the police detaining Liliana Gesheva, defence ministry chief clerk. Both reportedly pleaded guilty. As official news reports have it, Mr. Yanev was caught red-handed as he was slipping through the Russian embassy fence a classified military intelligence report. The Russian embassy is abstaining from comments.