Russia has revoked the accreditation of two British diplomats over alleged intelligence activities, the Federal Security Service (FSB) announced on Monday, the latest in a series of tit-for-tat diplomatic rebukes that was quickly dismissed by London as “baseless.”
The men “intentionally provided false information” when they received permission to enter Russia, which violated Russian law, and the service discovered “signs of carrying out intelligence and subversive work by the said diplomats that threatens the security of the Russian Federation,” an FSB statement said.
The pair were ordered to leave Russia within two weeks. The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned a representative of the British embassy today and a “strong protest” was expressed to him, it said.
“A warning was also made that if London escalates the situation, the Russian side will give a decisive ‘mirror’ response,” the Russian ministry’s statement said.
But Moscow and London have been trading diplomatic barbs for years, particularly since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 poisoned relations between the two countries.
Russia expelled several British diplomats last year: in September it sent six home, accusing them of spying, and in November it returned a further diplomat after it “identified signs of his conducting intelligence and subversive work.” In each case, Britain has dismissed the allegations.
More broadly, Russia claimed last year that Britain’s Foreign Office had transformed since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine into a body whose “main task is to inflict a strategic defeat on our country.”
And it has banned hundreds of British political and media figures from entering the country.
Russia often makes diplomatic moves at crucial junctures in the war in Ukraine. This week, a Ukrainian delegation will travel to Saudi Arabia to meet with US counterparts to negotiate an end to the conflict; Britain recently hosted a European summit aimed at finding a path forward that Kyiv and Europe can agree on.