FROM RUSSIA WITH NO LOVE
The unprecedented wave of expulsions of Russian diplomats from European capitals – now close to 400 – is not just a symbolic act of revulsion at the war crimes of which Russia stands accused. It is part of a decades-long battle to police the dividing line between espionage and diplomacy, in which the west has been accused of ignoring a recent resurgence in Russia’s clandestine activities.
Sir John Sawers, the former head of MI6, said last year that he suspected the west was picking up only 10% of Russia’s espionage. Certainly the scale of the exodus of alleged Russian spies – probably the largest single set of expulsions in history, according to the distinguished former French diplomat François Heisbourg – may raise the question of how the west came to indulge so many Russian “diplomats” on European soil. So far, Malta, Cyprus and Hungary are the only EU member states yet to send any of them packing.
Heisbourg said there was a clear and valid distinction between a
