Russia kicks out a British diplomat over spying claims

State media say that Moscow has kicked out a British diplomat for allegedly spying and sabotage activities based on fake papers.

State news service TASS said that Moscow has sent a British diplomat home because they think he is spying and making up documents. The news comes at a time when things are getting worse between Russia and the UK because of the war in Ukraine.

A spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry named Maria Zakharova confirmed that the ambassador had been kicked out and said that he had been called to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow. Russian media showed footage of the ambassador’s car pulling up to the ministry, but the UK Foreign Office has not yet made an official comment.

The expelled diplomat, whose name has not been made public, was reportedly spying and sabotaging, according to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). Russian state TV showed a picture of the diplomat and said that he was supposed to replace one of six UK ambassadors who were sent home in August for similar reasons.

Moscow and London have been kicking each other out one after the other for a while now. In the beginning of this year, Russia told British military attaché Capt. Adrian Coghill to leave the country. This happened soon after a Russian defense attaché was kicked out of London on charges of being a “undeclared military intelligence officer.”

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in full in 2022, things have been getting worse between the UK and Russia. The UK removed restrictions on Ukraine’s use of British-provided Storm Shadow missiles last week. This made it possible for Ukraine to attack targets inside Russian soil for the first time. This choice, along with Ukraine’s use of long-range weapons supplied by the US, led Russian President Vladimir Putin to defend the recent hypersonic missile attack on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.

The expulsion of diplomats shows how tense things are in geopolitics as a whole; charges of espionage are becoming common in the relationship between the UK and Russia. The expulsions show how distrust is growing and how the effects of the war in Ukraine are getting worse.

Russia has always seen the UK’s military and diplomatic support for Ukraine as direct involvement in the war, which the UK has always denied. Analysts say that these expulsions are a sign of how tactics from the Cold War are being used again as tensions rise around the world.

As of right now, the UK Foreign Office has refused to say anything else. It remains to be seen if this latest expulsion will lead to another response from London, but it shows how fragile international policy is in a world that is becoming more divided.