Russia’s Federal Security Service on Friday charged six British diplomats with espionage and announced the withdrawal of their credentials.
Diplomats will also be expelled from the country, Russian state television reported, citing an official from the security service, known as the FSB.
The decision comes two days after the United States and Britain pledged nearly $1.5 billion in additional aid to Ukraine, as Ukrainian officials renewed calls to use Western-supplied missiles against targets inside Russia.
The FSB said it had received documents indicating the diplomats had been sent to Russia by a division of the British Foreign Office “whose main task is to inflict a strategic defeat on our country” and that they were involved in “intelligence-gathering and subversive activities.”
According to a report by Russian state television, the six diplomats met with independent media outlets and rights groups that had been declared “foreign agents,” a designation Russian authorities typically give to organizations and individuals critical of the Kremlin.
The British Embassy in Moscow did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press. The British Foreign Office also had no comment.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in an online statement that “we fully agree with the assessments of the activities of the so-called British diplomats expressed by the Russian FSB. The British embassy has gone far beyond the limits set by the Vienna Conventions.”
The diplomats were carrying out “subversive actions aimed at causing harm to our people,” the statement added.
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