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Parliament of Great Britain
The incident occurred during a public tour. The Russians separated from the group and entered the House of Lords. However, security guards discovered them and expelled them.
Russian diplomats were able to enter a closed part of the UK Parliament during a public tour. The incident, which occurred last month, on Thursday, January 16, is reported by The Guardian.
It is reported that a small group of diplomats from the Russian embassy joined a public tour of the parliament buildings. At some point, they broke away from the tour and entered the restricted area of the House of Lords. There, they were discovered and expelled by security.
“We suspect they simply wanted to prove to the Kremlin that they had infiltrated the British parliament. It’s not ideal, but they were caught before any damage was done,” a parliamentary source told The Guardian.
At the same time, after the incident, members of parliament and their colleagues received a written warning from the speakers of both chambers not to invite Russian diplomats to parliament.
“As an officially accredited representative of the Russian government, the Russian ambassador should not be welcomed into Parliament until further notice. This applies to all other Russian diplomats and employees of the Russian embassy accredited to the United Kingdom,” the letter said.
The Russian ambassador, diplomats, and employees of the Russian embassy in London have been banned from visiting the British Parliament since 2022, when Moscow launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
And a few months ago, Russia expelled a British diplomat, accusing him of "intelligence and sabotage activities that threatened Russia's security."