Russia on Monday kicked out a British diplomat over allegations he was working as a spy -- charges rejected by London as “complete nonsense”.
Moscow and London have each expelled multiple embassy staff over the last decade, trading accusations of espionage.
Expulsions from one side have typically been followed by a tit-for-tat response from the other.
The diplomat was expelled for engaging in “subversive intelligence activities that threaten Russia’s security”, Russia’s FSB security service said.
The diplomat was ordered to leave Russia within two weeks, the FSB said.
The Russian foreign ministry said it had summoned Britain’s charge d’affaires over the incident and warned London not to retaliate.
Britain accused Russia of waging an “increasingly aggressive and co-ordinated campaign of harassment”.
“The accusations made today by Russia against our diplomats are complete nonsense,” a foreign ministry spokesperson said, adding Russia was “pumping out malicious and completely baseless accusations about their work”.
“The UK does not stand for intimidation of British embassy staff and their families,” the British spokesperson added.
Russia previously announced the expulsion of a British diplomat in January, prompting the UK to revoke a Russian diplomat’s accreditation last month.
Relations between London and Moscow, currently at a low point over the Ukraine war, have been strained by spying allegations for decades.
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.
In 2018, the UK said Russian double agent Sergei Skripal was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent in the British cathedral city of Salisbury.
A member of the public was killed after handling the delivery device, a discarded perfume bottle, triggering the largest Western expulsion in decades of Russian diplomats alleged to be spies.
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