The UK has revoked accreditation for a Russian diplomat and a diplomatic spouse in a tit-for-tat response to the expulsion of two British embassy staff in Moscow this week. The British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said on Wednesday that it was taking "immediate reciprocal action" after Russia accused two British diplomats of spying and gave them a fortnight to leave the country. The UK has rejected the claims, which were levelled on Monday, as "malicious" and "baseless". Russia's ambassador to the UK, Andrei Kelin, was summoned by the FCDO and informed of the latest expulsions. No timeframe was given for the pair's departure. "During the past 12 months, Russia has pursued an increasingly aggressive and coordinated campaign of harassment against British diplomats," the FCDO said in a statement. "It is clear that the Russian state is actively seeking to drive the British embassy in Moscow towards closure and has no regard for the dangerous escalatory impact of this." Expulsions of diplomats — both Western envoys working in Russia and Russians in the West — have become increasingly common since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In the past year alone, Russia has expelled seven British diplomats from the country over accusations of spying, which the UK has denied. Last May, the UK expelled Russia's defense attaché in London, claiming he was an undeclared intelligence officer, and shut down several Russian diplomatic premises, alleging they were being used for espionage. Moscow quickly retaliated by expelling the UK's defense attaché. And last month, London revoked the accreditation of another Russian diplomat, in retaliation to a similar move made by Moscow last November. Tensions escalated sharply in March 2018 when former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned in the English city of Salisbury with the Novichok nerve agent. British authorities said the incident was a targeted murder attempt coming from Moscow, a claim the Kremlin described as nonsense. More recently, the UK has provoked Russia's ire through its military support for Kyiv and Prime Minister Keir Starmer's comments about the possibility of deploying British peacekeepers to Ukraine to enforce any peace deal. — Euronews
