(Reuters) – Russia’s FSB security service said Friday it had revoked the accreditation of six British diplomats in Moscow whose actions it said showed signs of espionage and sabotage.
The British embassy in Moscow did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
The FSB, the main successor agency to the Soviet KGB, said it had documents showing that a British Foreign Office department in London responsible for Eastern Europe and Central Asia was coordinating what it called “the escalation of the political and military” and had the task of ensuring the strategic defeat of Russia in the war against Ukraine.
“Therefore, the revealed facts give reason to consider that the activities of British diplomats sent to Moscow by the leadership threaten the security of the Russian Federation,” the FSB said in a statement.
“In this regard, on the basis of documents provided by the Federal Security Service of Russia and in response to the numerous unfriendly measures taken by London, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, in cooperation with the concerned bodies, has put an end to to the accreditation of six members of the political department of the British Embassy in Moscow in whose actions signs of espionage and sabotage were found,” he noted.
The six diplomats were named by Russian state television, which also showed photographs of them.
“The British did not take our hints about the need to end this practice (of carrying out intelligence activities inside Russia), so we decided to expel these six to begin with,” an FSB employee told the television channel. state Rossiya-24.
The FSB said Russia would ask other British diplomats to return home early if they were found to be carrying out similar activities.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova was quoted by state news agency TASS as saying that the activities of the British embassy in Moscow had gone far beyond diplomatic conventions and accusing it of carrying out deliberate activity. designed to harm the Russian people.
