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  "path": "/partner/russia-expels-uk-diplomat-on-spying-allegations",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-30T10:26:24.000Z",
  "site": "https://nukta.com",
  "textContent": "\n\n\n\nRussia on Monday ordered a diplomat at the British embassy in Moscow to leave the country over allegations he was working as a spy, Russia’s FSB security service reported.\n\nMoscow and London have expelled multiple embassy staff over the last decade, both trading accusations of espionage.\nExpulsions from one side have typically been followed by a tit-for-tat response from the other.\n\nThe diplomat, whom the FSB named as 29-year-old embassy secretary Albertus Gerhardus Janse Van Rensburg, was expelled for engaging in “subversive intelligence activities that threaten Russia’s security,” the FSB said.\n\n“A decision was made to strip Janse Van Rensburg of his accreditation, and he was ordered to leave Russia within two weeks,” it added.\n\nThe Russian foreign ministry said it had summoned Britain’s charge d’affaires over the incident and warned the United Kingdom not to retaliate.\n\nThe British embassy made no immediate public comment.\n\nRelations between London and Moscow, currently at a low point over the Ukraine war, have been strained by spying allegations for decades.\n\nIn 2006, former FSB officer and Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko was killed in London, poisoned by polonium in what British investigators said was a hit by the Russian secret service.\n\nIn 2018, the UK said Russian double agent Sergei Skripal was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent in the British cathedral city of Salisbury.\n\nOne member of the public was killed after handling the delivery device, a discarded perfume bottle, triggering the largest Western expulsion of Russian diplomats alleged to be spies in decades.",
  "title": "Russia expels UK diplomat on spying allegations"
}