Russian police officers stand guard outside the British embassy in Moscow on May 23, 2017. (AFP File Photo)
Russia said on Sept. 10 that it had detained a Russian security guard working at Britain’s embassy in Moscow, alleging he was hired by Ukraine for a false flag attack on the U.K. ambassador.
The FSB security service said the individual had been recruited by a Ukrainian blogger working with that country’s SBU security agency to track events and people at the British embassy and take note of their security system.
Ukraine then “planned to use this obtained information to prepare and carry out sabotage and terrorist attacks against the head of the British diplomatic mission and other diplomats, and then accuse the Russian side,” the FSB said in a statement.
Kiev and London have not responded to the allegations.
Britain is one of Ukraine’s closest allies and backers, providing billions of dollars in military and financial aid.
Relations between Russia and Britain were frosty long before Moscow launched its full-scale Ukraine offensive in 2022, marred by several spy and assassination scandals.
They include the 2006 poisoning of ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London and the 2018 attempted poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, which killed a member of the British public.
On Sept. 9, British prosecutors said they had charged a 31-year-old British man for allegedly making contact with a representative of Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency.
Joshua Cammidge was charged with engaging in conduct to materially assist a foreign intelligence service in carrying out activities in violation of the National Security Act.
