Russia's foreign ministry is expressing “regret” after a diplomat from the Netherlands was beaten up in his Moscow apartment.  It’s the latest flare-up between the two countries in what’s supposed to be a year celebrating a friendship that goes back centuries.

Two men posing as electricians approached the deputy head of the Dutch mission in Moscow, Onno Elderenbosch, at his flat in Moscow.  Once inside, they bound the diplomat and roughed him up – And strangely, wrote “LGBT” on his bathroom mirror in pink lipstick.

It took Moscow police more than an hour to respond to the scene, despite repeated phone calls.

Dutch foreign minister Frans Timmermans told parliament he had spoken to his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, and that Lavrov had called the assault a “serious crime”.

Was this tit-for-tat harassment?  Last week Dutch police entered the home of a Russian diplomat in The Hague and took him into custody, after neighbors complained about a fight.  The Dutch foreign minister later apologized for breaking the rules of the Vienna Convention regarding diplomatic immunity.

And Russia is holding the crew of the Netherlands-flagged Greenpeace “Arctic Sunrise” for alleged piracy during its protest of Russian arctic oil drilling.