UK expels Russian diplomat and a diplomatic spouse in tit-for-tat response to expulsions in Moscow

Britain's government said Wednesday it has expelled a Russian diplomat and a diplomatic spouse in a tit-for-tat response to the expulsion of two British embassy staff in Moscow earlier this week.

The Foreign Office said in a statement it had summoned the Russian ambassador to the UK, Andrei Kelin, following an “increasingly aggressive and coordinated campaign of harassment against British diplomats" that it said represented an attempt to close the British embassy in Moscow.

It said Kelin was told that the UK will “not stand for intimidation of British embassy staff and their families." As a result, the Foreign Office was taking “immediate reciprocal action, revoking accreditation for a Russian diplomat and a diplomatic spouse.”

No timeframe for their departure was immediately available.

On Monday, Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, said in a statement quoted by the state news agency RIA Novosti that the two British diplomats expelled had provided false personal data while seeking permission to enter the country and had engaged in alleged intelligence and subversive activities that threatened Russia’s security. It didn’t offer any evidence.

According to the RIA Novosti report, a decision has been made to revoke the diplomats’ accreditations and they have been ordered to leave Russia within two weeks.

The Foreign Office said it was clear that Russia is “actively seeking to drive the British Embassy in Moscow towards closure and has no regard for the dangerous escalatory impact of this.”

“The depths to which Russia sinks can only be met through strength," it added.

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