Russia has ordered a diplomat at the British embassy in Moscow to leave the country over allegations he was working as a spy, Russian state media reported on Monday, citing the FSB security service.
Moscow and London have expelled multiple embassy staff over the last decade, both trading accusations of espionage.
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Expulsions from one side have typically been followed by a tit-for-tat response from the other.
The diplomat, whom the FSB named as embassy secretary Albertus Gerhardus Janse Van Rensburg, was expelled for engaging in “subversive intelligence activities that threaten Russia’s security”, the state RIA news agency reported.
“A decision was made to strip Janse Van Rensburg of his accreditation and order him to leave Russia within two weeks,” RIA quoted the FSB as saying.
The Russian foreign ministry said it had summoned Britain’s charge d’affaires.
The British embassy made no immediate public comment.
Relations between London and Moscow, currently at a low point over the Ukraine war, have been strained by spying allegations for decades.
In 2006, former FSB officer and Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko was killed in London, poisoned by polonium in what British investigators said was a hit by the Russian secret service.
In 2018, the UK said Russian double agent Sergei Skripal was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent in the British cathedral city of Salisbury.
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