Russia has ordered a British diplomat to leave the country for allegedly spying, in the latest blow to the already dire state of relations between the two countries.
The FSB security service said on Tuesday that the diplomat, whose photo was splashed across TV news bulletins, had intentionally provided false information when he entered the country.
“During counterintelligence work, the Russian Federal Security Service has discovered an undeclared British intelligence presence under the cover of the national embassy in Moscow,” it said.
“At the same time, the Russian FSB has discovered signs of the said diplomat conducting intelligence and subversive work that threatens the security of the Russian Federation,” it said in a statement.
It named him as Edward Wilkes and said he was a second secretary, a relatively junior diplomatic rank.
A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was unaware of the reported diplomatic expulsion, the Reuters news agency reported.
Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that a decision was made to revoke the diplomat’s accreditation and he has been ordered to leave the country within two weeks. She said that the ministry had summoned the British ambassador to hand over the notice.
The envoy, Nigel Casey, was shown by Russian state media arriving at the Foreign Ministry in Moscow.
According to the FSB, the British diplomat was a replacement for one of six British diplomats expelled earlier this year, also on espionage charges.
Tense relations
Reacting to the earlier expulsions in September, the United Kingdom rejected the spying allegations against its diplomats as “malicious and completely baseless” and said Russia’s behaviour was completely unacceptable.
Relations between the UK and Russia have plunged to post-Cold War lows since the start of the Ukraine war. The UK has joined successive waves of sanctions against Russia and provided arms to Ukraine.
Russia said Ukraine fired British-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles at its territory last week for the first time.
President Vladimir Putin cited the use of the British-made missiles, and the launching of US ATACMS ballistic missiles by Ukraine, as the reason Russia responded by launching a new hypersonic missile at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro last week.
Relations between London and Moscow have been repeatedly strained by alleged spy scandals, including the 2006 assassination of former Russian agent and Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in a London poisoning attack.
Then in 2018, the UK and its allies expelled dozens of Russian embassy officials they accused of being spies over the attempted poisoning of former double agent, Sergei Skripal, who was living in exile in the UK.
Skripal survived the attempted Novichok attack but a British civilian died after touching a contaminated perfume bottle, triggering uproar in London.
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