British intelligence services have been attempting to recruit or threaten Russian diplomats working in the UK, Moscow’s ambassador to London Andrey Kelin has claimed.

Speaking to RIA Novosti on Thursday, Kelin said “such instances do take place,” describing them as “unacceptable.” The Russian Embassy has made a point of drawing the British authorities’ attention to the incidents, he added.

Commenting on the previous Conservative government’s decision to expel Russia’s military attaché, strip a number of properties of their diplomatic status, as well as restrict the issuance of diplomatic visas in May, the ambassador suggested that these steps had largely been taken to score political points at home ahead of the UK parliamentary election in July, which resulted in a landslide defeat for the Tories anyway.

Ambassador Kelin noted that Moscow had responded in kind by expelling the British military attaché – a move that was quite predictable, he added.

While London’s decision did make life more difficult for Russian diplomats in the UK, it also seriously undermined Britain’s own interests, the ambassador claimed.

He clarified that “London… knowingly severed channels of military-diplomatic dialogue during a period of unprecedented escalation… in Europe.”

Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov had voiced similar concerns regarding the US in an interview with RIA Novosti in March, relaying that the “situation around the [Russian] embassy is indeed complicated.”

“I can’t help but mention the unhealthy attention of [US] special services to Russian diplomats,” Antonov stated. He alleged that embassy staff had received offers to cooperate with US authorities on their personal mobile phones, and that agents had approached them in public places.

In June, Antonov lamented that Washington had decided to shut down the Russian visa centers in Washington and New York.
The envoy noted that the move had placed a “serious extra burden” on Moscow’s diplomatic presence in the US, which had already been “drained of blood” due to expulsions of Russian staff.

Antonov also denounced Washington’s revocation of the tax exemption status of Russian Embassy personnel as a “petty, nasty attack.”

According to the envoy, while the US authorities had failed to provide any reasoning for their actions, the intent may have been to “force our diplomats to hide behind the walls of the embassy, to stop communicating and working.”

“This will not happen. Until the last diplomat, while we remain here, we will keep performing our duties,” Antonov stressed.