Russia is expelling an employee of the British embassy in Moscow, whom the FSB has identified as a secret agent operating under diplomatic cover. At the same time, the British Council is facing a severe protest.
Russia announced on Thursday that it is expelling a diplomat working in the economic department of the British Embassy in Moscow. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) identified him as a British intelligence officer sent to Russia under diplomatic cover. In this context, Moscow also summoned the British chargé d’affaires, to whom it expressed a sharp protest. The diplomat in question must leave the country within two weeks. TASR informs about it according to a Reuters report.
The FSB said in a statement that during counter-espionage operations it discovered that Gareth Samuel Davis, born August 8, 1980, is a British intelligence officer who was operating in Russia under the cover of Second Secretary of the Administrative and Economic Department of the British Embassy in Moscow.
Expulsion of a British diplomat
Subsequently, according to the FSB, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs decided to cancel the British’s accreditation. The British diplomat must leave Russia within two weeks. The Russian ministry explained to the summoned chargé d’affaires of the British embassy that Moscow “will not tolerate the activities of undeclared British intelligence officers in Russia.”
The British side did not immediately comment on Moscow’s move, but the Department of Russian Diplomacy warned that if London decides to escalate the situation, Russia will take symmetrical countermeasures.
Russia and Britain have strained relations over the war in Ukraine. Expulsions of diplomats – envoys of Western states working in Russia, as well as Russians operating in the West – have become increasingly frequent, according to the agencies, since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
