Russia’s FSB orders British diplomat’s expulsion, UK rejects ‘intimidation’ | News

Russia’s intelligence agency accuses the second secretary at the British Embassy in Moscow of espionage.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has ordered a British diplomat to leave the country within two weeks over allegations of economic espionage, which the United Kingdom rejected as “unacceptable” amid tensions over Russia’s war on Ukraine.

The FSB, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, on Monday said its counterintelligence officers had expelled Albertus Gerhardus Janse van Rensburg, the second secretary at the British Embassy in Moscow.

“The FSB ⁠uncovered signs that the diplomat was carrying out intelligence and subversive activities that threaten the security of the Russian Federation,” the agency said.

It added that the diplomat had attempted to “obtain sensitive information during informal meetings with Russian experts in the field of economics”.

“In order to avoid negative ⁠consequences, including criminal liability, the FSB of Russia recommends that compatriots refrain from holding meetings ⁠with British diplomats,” it said.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had delivered a protest to Britain’s charge d’affaires over the alleged spy.

The British ⁠Foreign Office responded by saying that Russia’s accusations against ⁠its diplomats were “completely unacceptable” and that it would ⁠not tolerate “intimidation” of ⁠its ⁠embassy staff or their families.

Russia-UK discord

Russia has claimed British intelligence launched espionage activities at a level unseen since the depths of the Cold War to sow discord within the country, and it has long complained that its own diplomats are routinely harassed in key Western capitals.

The UK, ‌which supports Ukraine with money and weapons, sees Russia as its biggest immediate threat and accuses its intelligence of mounting cyberattacks, killings and sabotage campaigns across the Western world.

Since Russia launched its full-scale military invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Russian authorities have sought to suppress opposition to the war while aiming to rally support for the war among Russian citizens.

Last week, Russia declared the teacher and main protagonist of the Oscar-winning documentary Mr Nobody Against Putin a “foreign agent“. Pavel Talankin spent two years documenting pro-war propaganda at a school in the Chelyabinsk region in west-central Russia while working as the school’s videographer.