A history of tit-for-tat expulsions

Britain and Russia have been expelling each other’s envoys for as long as the two nations have had diplomatic relations.

In 1725, Capt John Deane was kicked out from his post in St Petersburg for spying and, in 1800, the ambassador Charles Whitworth was expelled after a spat with Tsar Paul I.

It was the Cold War that set the standard for carefully calibrated tit-for-tat expulsions such as yesterday’s removal of 23 British diplomats after the earlier ousting of 23 of their Russian counterparts.

The largest expulsion happened in 1971 after Soviet defector Oleg Adolfovich Lyalin gave information on the scale of spying from the embassy. The British Government expelled 105 officials. Moscow sent 27 Britons home.

Another major wave followed in 1985 when Oleg Gordievsky revealed the names of Russian spies in London. A six-day tit-fortat exchange of expulsions ended after each country had removed 31 diplomats.

More recently, four Russians were expelled after Alexander Litvinenko was murdered. Russia expelled four Britons.