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Russia is attempting to push the UK embassy in Moscow towards closing and has no regard for the escalatory impact of such a move, the Foreign Office has said.
The UK expelled a Russian diplomat and their spouse on Wednesday in a tit-for-tat response to the expulsion of two British diplomats for alleged espionage, a claim UK officials strenuously deny.
In a strongly worded statement, the Foreign Office said: “During the past 12 months, Russia has pursued an increasingly aggressive and coordinated campaign of harassment against British diplomats, pumping out malicious and completely baseless accusations about their work.
“Russia’s expulsion this week of a British diplomat and diplomatic spouse is yet another escalation. The accusations made against these individuals are entirely false, fabricated in order to justify their increasing harassment of UK diplomats.
“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.”
A senior Foreign Office official summoned the Russian ambassador, Andrey Kelin, and told him that the UK would not stand for the intimidation of British embassy staff and their families.
The official said: “We do not take this decision lightly but we have always made clear to Russia that if they escalate, we will take reciprocal action. The depths to which Russia sinks can only be met through strength.”
The foreign secretary, David Lammy, on his way to a meeting of his G7 counterparts in Canada, said: “We will not tolerate the Kremlin’s relentless and unacceptable campaign of intimidation, nor their repeated attempts to threaten UK security.”
The Foreign Office stressed that it believed in keeping diplomatic lines of communication open and said it would regard the latest episode as closed so long as Russia did not seek to escalate further.
In throwing out two British diplomats, Moscow said it “will not tolerate the presence of undeclared British intelligence personnel in Russia”.
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The FSB, Russia’s domestic intelligence service, said the two people expelled were the embassy’s second secretary and the spouse of another diplomat. It said it had uncovered “signs of espionage and sabotage work” by both of them.
Russian intelligence services have claimed the UK sees the recent restoration of US-Russian relations as a threat to its interests, with the UK regarding control over Ukraine as central to its strategy of containing Moscow.
