.png)
4 hours ago
1
Two people connected to the British embassy in Moscow have been ordered to leave the country by the Russian authorities, which claimed they had been performing intelligence work.
The British government hit back by accusing Russia of making “malicious and baseless accusations”.
Citing Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), the state news agency Tass identified the two individuals who had been expelled as a second secretary of the British embassy and the spouse of another British diplomat.
It named the two people and accused them of deliberately declaring false information about themselves when entering the country.
They have been given two weeks to leave, according to the Russian government, which accused them of “intelligence and subversive activities”.
The FSB had uncovered what it called “signs of intelligence and sabotage work” by both that threatened Russia’s national security, Tass added.
It comes days after three Bulgarian nationals accused of spying for Russia were found guilty of espionage charges in a trial that heard how they were involved in a string of plots around Europe directed by a fugitive based in Moscow.
Downing Street said the latest expulsions were “what we have come to expect from President Putin and his regime” and “the allegations are no doubt baseless”.
The prime minister’s official spokesperson said: “It won’t distract us from our focus on supporting Ukraine and putting Ukraine in the strongest possible position over the days and weeks ahead.”
The Russian government posted a video on X on Monday morning showing what it said was a representative of the British embassy being summoned to the foreign affairs ministry.
The move appears to the latest in a series of tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats by Russia and the UK.
Britain expelled a Russian diplomat last month with the foreign secretary, David Lammy, saying that action had been taken “following Russia’s recent expulsion of a British diplomat” in November.
Russia had accused the British diplomat of giving false information and spying.
The expulsion was announced after a major criminal investigation left six members of a Russian proxy spy ring labelled the “Minions” facing years behind bars for their part in one of the “largest and most complex” enemy operations to be uncovered on UK soil.
The Bulgarians Katrin Ivanova, 33, Vanya Gaberova, 30, and Tihomir Ivanchev, 39, were found guilty at the Old Bailey last week of spying on an “industrial scale”, putting lives and national security at risk.
after newsletter promotion
The Russian spy ring will be sentenced in May alongside the ringleader, Orlin Roussev, 47; his second-in-command, Biser Dzhambazov, 43; and Ivan Stoyanov, 33, who admitted their roles.
Christo Grozev, a Bulgarian journalist who was the focus of discussions by members of the spy ring about kidnapping or killing him, said the expulsions appeared to be a “thinly deniable tit for tat” for the convictions last week.
“I am sure that the Russian government was closely following the court trial and were sending feelers to try to find out what the verdict was likely to be,” he said.
“Thus, for them to expel the two British diplomats right now is clearly expected, if not intended, to be seen as a reaction to the verdict. It appears to me to be a thinly deniable tit for tat.”
In January, the Guardian reported on how Russian diplomats accessed a private area of parliament in a major security breach shortly before Christmas that alarmed security officials and prompted private warnings from the speakers of both houses.
A number of UK politicians and journalists have been barred from entering Russia since the start of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Dozens of others, including the deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, and other cabinet members, were also added by Russia to a so-called “stop list”.
