16 November 2022, Wednesday, 19:08 1227

Europe Expels 400 Russian Spies Unexpectedly For Putin - Head Of British Counterintelligence

Редактор: Daria Zubkova

The expulsion of more than 400 Russian spies from across Europe this year dealt the biggest strategic blow to Moscow in recent history and caught Vladimir Putin by surprise, Britain's head of internal intelligence (MI5) Ken McCallum said. This was reported by Reuters on Wednesday, November 16.

McCallum said more than 600 Russian officials had been expelled from Europe, of which more than 400 had been found to be spies.

"This has dealt the most significant strategic blow to Russian intelligence services in recent European history. And together with coordinated waves of sanctions, the scale has caught Russian President Putin by surprise," he said in a speech at MI5 headquarters in London.

McCallum said the response measures were put in place by Britain after the nerve agent poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, southern England, in 2018, which triggered a wave of diplomatic expulsions of Russian diplomats. The intelligence chief said Britain had rejected more than 100 Russian applications for diplomatic visas this year on national security grounds.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, on March 28, the Defense Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense published the data of 620 employees of the FSB of Russia, who are involved in the criminal activities of the aggressor country on the territory of Europe.

In July, the Security Service of Ukraine eliminated a powerful channel of illegal legalization of Russians who fled from Russia to Ukraine.

Also in July, a Russian spy who wanted to infiltrate volunteer organizations was detained in Zakarpattia.