ATHENS – “Just a few days ago, the government, with an early repayment of the last of the country’s obligations to the IMF, closed – as the prime minister pointed out – a gray chapter that opened in March 2010. Greece finally turned the page …and officially entered another era,” government spokesperson Yiannis Oikonomou said on Thursday during a press briefing.

“This is a sacrifice of the entire Greek people, which was achieved with sacrifices but also with hard work,” Oikonomou added.

Asked to comment on a statement by the director of the Information and Press Department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, who said that the expulsion of Russian diplomats from Greece would be “answered appropriately”, he said: “Our opposition to the Russian invasion is non-negotiable. It is a matter of principles and values. Our bilateral relations are based on principles and values. The country is absolute in this.”