Russia has expelled British diplomat Albertus Janse van Rensburg over alleged spying, a claim the U.K. dismissed as “complete nonsense.” This is the second such expulsion this year, amid escalating tensions between Moscow and the West.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), the country’s top domestic security and counterintelligence agency, said in a statement that the diplomat was “carrying out intelligence and subversive activities that threaten the security of the Russian Federation.”
The FSB accused him of attempting to gather “sensitive information” about the Russian economy in “unofficial meetings” with Russian experts, without providing further details, and ordered him to leave Russia within two weeks.
A spokesperson for the U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said on Monday, “The accusations made today by Russia against our diplomats are complete nonsense. Russia has pursued an increasingly aggressive and coordinated campaign of harassment against British diplomats, pumping out malicious and completely baseless accusations about their work. The UK does not stand for intimidation of British embassy staff and their families.”
This latest expulsion follows a similar move in January, which the U.K. also dismissed as baseless. In response, the British government revoked the accreditation of a Russian diplomat in February.
In March 2025, Moscow expelled two British diplomats over spying allegations, which the U.K. similarly rejected as false.
Relations between Russia and NATO allies have further deteriorated, with multiple rounds of mutual diplomatic expulsions since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022, marking the lowest point in ties since the Cold War.
