Russia expels British diplomat for alleged espionage

By Lauren Kent and Darya Tarasova, CNN

London (CNN) — Russia expelled a British diplomat who worked at the embassy in Moscow Tuesday, accusing him of spying, marking the latest blow to the two countries’ worsening diplomatic relations.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry alleged that the British diplomat intentionally provided false information to enter the country as a cover for espionage work, thereby violating Russian law.

Russian security authorities “identified signs of his conducting intelligence and subversive work on the territory of our country,” the Foreign Ministry said.

The Foreign Ministry subsequently revoked the diplomat’s diplomatic accreditation and ordered him to leave Russia within two weeks, state media TASS reported.

A British Foreign Office spokesperson said in a statement: “This is not the first time that Russia has made malicious and baseless accusations against our staff. We will respond in due course.”

Russia’s FSB claimed the diplomat was sent to Moscow to “replace” one of six alleged British intelligence officers that Russia expelled this summer.

In August, Russia revoked the accreditation of the diplomats, also on allegations of espionage. At the time, Britain described the accusations as “completely baseless.”

Later on Tuesday, Russia barred 30 British citizens from entering the country, in response to “the incessant aggressive anti-Russian rhetoric of the UK authorities,” according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.

The list named several UK government ministers, including Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, as well as journalists from British newspapers, including The Times and The Daily Mail.

“As a response to the hostile actions of the British side, a decision was made to include a number of representatives of the political establishment, the military bloc, high-tech enterprises, and the British journalistic corps who have demonstrated themselves in the anti-Russian field, to the Russian “stop list,”” the Russian ministry said in a statement.

In response to Russia’s list of barred British citizens, a spokesperson for the UK Foreign Office said in a statement: “While we do not comment on Russian designations, we can’t see any member of this government traveling to Russia anytime until Putin rolls back his tanks and ends his illegal invasion of Ukraine.”

Relations between the UK and Russia have been increasingly strained as Russia continues its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The UK has joined the heavy sanctions imposed by Western nations against Russia and pledged billions of dollars of military and economic support to Ukraine since 2022.

Last week, Ukraine launched the British-French-made Storm Shadow missiles at targets inside Russia for the first time, according to a Russian military blog and Reuters, a day after Ukraine fired US-made ATACMS missiles into Russia.

That prompted direct condemnation from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who said the Kremlin’s launch of a new medium-range ballistic missile last week was a response to the “reckless decisions” of Western countries in supplying weapons to Kyiv.

On Tuesday, the Russian Ministry of Defense said two other recent Ukrainian strikes on Russian facilities in the Kursk region used US-made ATACMS longer-range missiles.

Longer-range missiles targeted the position of a Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missile division near the village of Lotarevka on Saturday, northwest of Kursk, causing casualties and damaging a radar system, according to the defense ministry. Kyiv launched an incursion into Russia’s Kursk region in August, taking Moscow and even its own allies by surprise.

A second attack using ATACMS missiles targeted a Russian airfield on Monday, the ministry added. One reached the target, wounding two servicemen and lightly damaging infrastructure.

The Ukrainian military said last week it successfully hit a Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missile system, but it did not specify the type of weapon used for the attack.

Meanwhile, Russia launched a “record” 188 drone attacks on Ukraine overnight, according to the Ukrainian Air Force on Tuesday.

Russia fired four more Iskander-M ballistic missiles at Ukraine, the Air Force said. The attack damaged critical infrastructure in the western Ukrainian city of Ternopil, causing power outages, according to the local military administration.

In the Kyiv region, air defense interceptions could be heard operating throughout the night. Several residential homes were damaged by the downed drones, which shattered windows of houses, Kyiv authorities said.

In Sumy, at least two people were killed following a Russian attack on a service station, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his daily address on Tuesday evening. A rescue operation is still underway, he added.

Clare Sebastian, Maria Kostenko, Daria Tarasova-Markina, Katharina Krebs and Caitlin Danaher contributed reporting.

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