The British Embassy in Moscow. Photo: Sergei Ilnitsky / EPA
Six British diplomats stationed in Moscow have had their accreditation revoked on suspicion of their involvement in espionage activities, the Federal Security Service (FSB) said in a press release on Friday.
The Russian Foreign Ministry decision was made “on the basis of documents provided by the Russian FSB and as a response to numerous unfriendly steps by London,” according to the FSB.
State-owned TV news channel Russia-24 named the diplomats as Jessica Davenport, Grace Alvin, Callum Andrew Duff, Catherine McDonnell, Thomas John Hickson Stavenet and Blake Pattel.
An unnamed FSB officer told state-owned TV news channel Russia-24 that the diplomats had been accused of meeting with staff from NGOs deemed “foreign agent” organisations by the Russian government, as well as with journalists from independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta.
The source said that the FSB had received documents “confirming London was helping to escalate the international military and political situation”, adding that the Foreign Office’s Directorate of Eastern Europe and Central Asia had become little more than an intelligence service aiming to bring about Russia’s defeat ever since the start of the war in Ukraine. He said the FSB would continue to push for the expulsion of any other British diplomats it believed to be involved in espionage in the future.
“We fully share the FSB’s assessment of these British diplomats’ activities. The British Embassy has gone far beyond the limits outlined by the Vienna Convention,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram.
