U.K. Interior Minister James Cleverly announced May 8 that London will “expel Russia’s defense attaché, remove diplomatic status from some properties, and limit the length of Russian diplomatic visas,” in response to what Cleverly called Moscow’s “malign activity.” The defense attaché was declared an “undeclared military intelligence officer.” Reuters adds that “Britain’s action was among several taken across Europe on Wednesday [May 8]. Estonia summoned the head of the Russian embassy to protest the jamming of GPS signals and Poland said it had been targeted by a hacking attack from a Russia-linked group. Last week, NATO members said they were ‘deeply concerned’ about recent attacks they attributed to Russia that affected the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Britain, including a spy network behind an online media outlet busted by Czech investigators.”
Addressing Parliament on May 8, Cleverly said that Britain was already “an extremely challenging operating environment for Russian intelligence services,” but the measures would “only serve to strengthen our resilience to the Russian threat.... We will remove diplomatic premises status from several Russian-linked properties in the U.K..... We are imposing new restrictions on Russian diplomatic visas, including capping the length of time Russian diplomats can spend in the U.K.” The timing of Cleverly’s actions suggest that the British Empire was not pleased with the blunt message on nuclear confrontation, given to their ambassador to Moscow Nigel Casey, on May 6.
