Russia Expels 6 Brit Diplomats for 'Intelligence and Subversive Activites'

Sept. 14—Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB, announced Sept. 13 the expulsion of six British diplomats from Russia for “engaging in intelligence and subversive activities incompatible with their diplomatic status,” reported TASS. “The Russian Federal Security Service has received documentary materials confirming London’s coordination of the escalation of the international military-political situation,” the press office said.

“The said documents show that in the U.K. the main unit coordinating subversive activities in Russia’s direction (and in the countries of the former U.S.S.R.) is the Directorate for Eastern Europe and Central Asia of the U.K. Foreign Office, which after the beginning of the special military operation in Ukraine was transformed into a special service whose main task is to inflict a strategic defeat on our country,” the FSB press office said in a statement. “On the basis of documents provided by the FSB, as well as in response to numerous unfriendly steps of London, the Russian Foreign Ministry, in cooperation with the concerned agencies, terminated the accreditation of six employees of the political department of the U.K. Embassy in Moscow. The FSB detected signs of intelligence and subversive activities in their work,” the FSB said.

“The revealed facts give grounds to consider the activities of U.K. diplomats sent to Moscow by the Directorate as a threat to Russia’s security,” the press office added. “Subsequently, if similar actions are detected in the employees of the U.K. diplomatic mission, the FSB will demand early termination of their business trips in Russia,” the FSB emphasized.

The British Foreign Office went ballistic in response to the FSB's charges. “The accusations made today by the FSB against our staff are completely baseless,” it said in a statement, reported The Telegraph. “The Russian authorities revoked the diplomatic accreditation of six U.K. diplomats in Russia last month, following action taken by the U.K. government in response to Russian state-directed activity across Europe and in the U.K  We are unapologetic about protecting our national interests.”