Why is Putin expelling more British diplomats?

Another six bite the dust. The British Embassy in Moscow, already pared to the bone, is being reduced by another six diplomats. Their accreditation has been withdrawn because they were ‘threatening the security of the Russian Federation’ by ‘conducting intelligence and subversive work.’ It is bad news for international stability as diplomatic links become more and more attenuated, but perhaps something of a tribute to Britain.

The Russian media today has been running two strikingly similar stories, one built around a statement from the Public Relations Centre of the Federal Security Service (FSB), the other comments by the Russian Foreign Ministry’s reliably acerbic spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova. The upshot is that, in the FSB’s words, it ‘has received documentary materials confirming London’s coordination of the escalation of the international military-political situation.’

This is the largest expulsion in the past year, after the flurry of extensive tit-for-tat purges which followed the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.