While the foreign ministry maintains the the Colonel himself was responsible for being thrown out by the Russians for conduct unbecoming of a diplomat, the IDF maintains that this was a action taken by the Russians to send Israel a message.
It has been revealed that this Colonel Leiderman was a repeat offender, he was warned thrice by the Russian government to watch his actions but he did not listen. Basically the Russians claimed that he gathered intelligence on Moscow's arms trading with Arab states and was also overly aggressive in promoting the interests of Israel's military industries in the Russian market.
Foreign ministry official clearly state that the rules governing the conduct of foreign diplomats are well laid out and the same for each and every diplomat thus Colonel Leiderman should have been more watchful.
Another fact that has come out of all this is that the three warnings which he received from Moscow was not reported by the embassy to Tel-Aviv. Only short messages were sent which did not give any indication of the seriousness of the issue. If Tel-Aviv had known earlier they might have recalled him without this situation blowing up.
IDF maintains a completely opposite stand to that of the Foreign Ministry, it believes that the Russians were not clear in their communique and the embassy officials did not properly brief Colonel Leiderman thus he was completely unaware of the concerns of the Russian.
Leiderman was detained for questioning in Moscow by the Russian security services on May 12th.The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed that Israel's military attaché to Moscow Col. Vadim Leiderman was caught receiving secret information from a Russian citizen on May 12th and subsequently expelled from the country, Russian news agency Novosti reported.
Leiderman was declared persona non grata "in connection with activity incompatible with his diplomatic status" and ordered to leave Russia "within 48 hours, which he did," the Russian Foreign Ministry stated.
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