ST. PETERSBURG, January 25 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Foreign Ministry should make a joint proposal on the possible expulsion of the alleged British agents at the center of an espionage scandal.
"As for expulsion, it has been the practice to expel intelligence officers working under diplomatic cover from the country in recent decades," Putin said. "The Foreign Ministry and the FSB should make a joint proposal in this regard."
The spy scandal erupted after state-owned TV channel Rossiya broke the news Sunday evening in a program featuring video footage and interviews with people who said they were representatives of the FSB.
They said British agents had planted electronics and a transmitter in an imitation rock on a Moscow street, allowing agents to upload classified computer data that could then be downloaded by British Embassy employees. The allegations in the program were based on a recording made by a hidden FSB camera.
The FSB said it had identified four British agents operating in Moscow under diplomatic cover and had seized a high-tech British spying device used to contact agents.
The security service also alleged that Marc Doe, a first secretary at the British Embassy in Moscow, had been authorizing regular payments to Russian non-governmental organizations. Several documents signed by him were shown as evidence of cash payments to NGOs operating in Moscow, including 23,000 pounds (about $40,000) to the Moscow Helsinki Group, and 5,719 pounds ($9,700) to the Eurasia Foundation. The former has denied any wrongdoing.
Tit-for-tat expulsions were common practice in bilateral relations during the Cold War. One of the most famous examples came in 1971, when the U.K. expelled 105 Soviet diplomats suspected of spying.
