Russia–United Kingdom relations

Two Bulgarians detained in London have confessed to being Russian spies, as part of an ongoing trial involving three other Bulgarian nationals. The court proceedings began with 33-year-old Katrin Ivanova, 30-year-old Vanya Gaberova, and 39-year-old Tihomir Ivanchev pleading not guilty to charges of conspiracy to spy.

Russia on Sept. 13 accused six British diplomats of spying and said it decided to expel them, an announcement that comes as tensions between Moscow and the West grow during an intensified push by Ukraine to loosen restrictions on using weapons provided by the U.S. and Britain to strike Russia.

The Sofia City Prosecutor's Office has issued European arrest warrants for Russian citizens who are accused of terrorism in Bulgaria. The subject of the current investigation are four explosions that occurred in the period from 2011 to 2020 in ammunition warehouses on the territory of Bulgaria.

Russia has said it has seen no evidence he was poisoned and has denied any involvement in the incident

Bulgarian prosecutors have named the three Russians they have charged with the attempted murder of three Bulgarians whose poisoning is being investigated for possible links with the 2018 nerve-agent attack on the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal.

The chief suspects behind the Salisbury poisonings and the organisers of an alleged coup in Montenegro in 2016 may have had close links, according to the British conservative Daily Telegraph newspaper, citing a Bellingcat investigation.

Yulia Skripal, who was poisoned in Britain last month along with her father, a former Russian spy, has said she did not wish to take up the offer of assistance from the Russian embassy in London.

Britain is considering offering poisoned Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia new identities and a fresh life in the United States in an attempt to protect them from further murder attempts, the Sunday Times newspaper reported.

The first of a group of 60 US diplomats who have been expelled from Russia in the wake of the poisoned spy row departed from Washington's embassy in Moscow early Thursday, an AFP reporter on the scene said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on April 2 suggested that the poisoning of a former double agent could benefit the British government by distracting attention from problems around Brexit.