Russia’s decision to kick out six alleged British spies in August prompted a strange sense of deja vu. After the Salisbury nerve agent attack in March 2018, I sweated for a week in the British Embassy in Moscow, waiting to hear if I’d be kicked out in the diplomatic tit-for-tat.
We need a better plan for Russia expertise if we really want to outsmart Putin
Russia’s announcement was timed to embarrass Keir Starmer as he travelled to Washington last week for talks with Joe Biden. It was also a blow to the critically small pool of Russia experts in the British government.
In the hostile goldfish bowl of UK-Russia relations, both sides are constantly on the lookout for ‘undeclared’ intelligence officers (i.e. spies) working covertly by masquerading as diplomatically accredited staff in the respective embassies. We kicked out the Russian Defence Attache earlier this year.
The Russians run a huge ‘guess-the-spy’ game around the clock, with all manner of covert and overt surveillance. I
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