Moscow ejects British envoy over espionage claims

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Russian President Vladimir Putin Photo by Vyacheslav OSELEDKO / AFP.

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Russia on Monday ordered a diplomat at the British embassy in Moscow to leave the country over allegations he was working as a spy, Russia’s FSB security service reported.

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Moscow and London have expelled multiple embassy staff over the last decade, both trading accusations of espionage.

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Expulsions from one side have typically been followed by a tit-for-tat response from the other.

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The diplomat, whom the FSB named as 29-year-old embassy secretary Albertus Gerhardus Janse Van Rensburg, was expelled for engaging in “subversive intelligence activities that threaten Russia’s security”, the FSB said.

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“A decision was made to strip Janse Van Rensburg of his accreditation, and he was ordered to leave Russia within two weeks,” it added.

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The Russian foreign ministry said it had summoned Britain’s charge d’affaires over the incident and warned the United Kingdom not to retaliate.

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The British embassy made no immediate public comment.

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Relations between London and Moscow, currently at a low point over the Ukraine war, have been strained by spying allegations for decades.

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In 2006, former FSB officer and Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko was killed in London, poisoned by polonium in what British investigators said was a hit by the Russian secret service.

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In 2018, the UK said Russian double agent Sergei Skripal was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent in the British cathedral city of Salisbury.

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One member of the public was killed after handling the delivery device, a discarded perfume bottle, triggering the largest Western expulsion of Russian diplomats alleged to be spies in decades.

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AFP

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