Russia has ordered the British defence attaché in Moscow to leave within a week in a tit-for-tat move that underlines fraught relations between London and the Kremlin.
The foreign ministry said Adrian Coghill was being expelled in response to the “politically motivated” and “Russophobic” expulsion of his Russian counterpart from London, announced a week ago.
Britain would be informed of additional retaliatory measures later, the ministry added.
James Cleverly, the home secretary, said on May 8 that Britain would expel Russia’s defence attaché, remove diplomatic status from some properties and limit the length of Russian diplomatic visas in response to what he called Moscow’s “malign activity”.
Addressing parliament, Cleverly said Britain was already “an extremely challenging operating environment for Russian intelligence services” but the measures
