Russia on Thursday said it was expelling a United Kingdom diplomat whom it accused of being an undercover spy.
The Russian foreign ministry said it had summoned Britain’s charge d’affaires, where a “strong protest was lodged in connection with information received by the competent Russian authorities that one of the embassy’s diplomatic staff belongs to the UK’s intelligence services.”
“The individual’s accreditation is being revoked. He is required to leave the Russian Federation within two weeks,” the ministry said.
Moscow and London have expelled several of each other’s embassy staff over the last decade, each trading accusations of espionage.
Expulsions by one side have typically been followed up by a tit-for-tat response from the other.
Russia warned Britain not to “escalate the situation”, pledging to deliver a “firm symmetrical response,” should London retaliate.
The FSB named the man as Gareth Samuel Davies, who is listed on Russia’s official database of accredited diplomats as the embassy’s second secretary.
Relations between London and Moscow were already at their lowest in decades, even before Russia launched its full-scale military offensive on Ukraine.
Tensions over spying allegations have plagued ties for decades.
In 2006, Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko was killed in London, poisoned by polonium in what British investigators said was a hit by the Russian secret service.
And in 2018, the UK said Russian double agent Sergei Skripal was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent in the British cathedral city of Salisbury.
One member of the public was killed after handling the delivery device, a discarded perfume bottle, triggering the largest Western expulsion of Russian diplomats, alleged to be spies, in decades.
AFP
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