Russia's foreign ministry has expressed regret after a Dutch diplomat was beaten up in in Moscow.

Unknown assailants forced their way into a top Dutch diplomat’s home on Tuesday evening, pushed him to the floor and tied him up before ransacking the apartment, according to Russian authorities. The attackers reportedly drew a large pink heart on a mirror and scrawled 'LGBT' beneath it – suggesting a homophobic motive.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that police in Moscow were taking every measure to find and apprehend the culprits.

The relations between Russia and the Netherlands were strained by the brief detention of a Russian diplomat in The Hague earlier this month, for which the Netherlands apologized, and by Russia’s September seizure of a Dutch-registered Greenpeace ship in the Arctic and arrest of all 30 people on board.

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