Two people connected to the British embassy in Moscow have been ordered to leave the country by the Russian authorities, which claimed they had been performing intelligence work.

Citing Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), the Russian state news agency (TASS) identified the two individuals who had been expelled as a second secretary of the British embassy and the spouse of another British diplomat.

It named the two people and accused them of deliberately declaring false information about themselves when entering the country.

They have been given two weeks to leave, according to the Russian government, which accused them of “intelligence and subversive activities”.

The FSB had uncovered what it called “signs of intelligence and sabotage work” by both which threatened Russia’s national security, TASS added.

The Russian government posted a video on X on Monday morning showing what it said was a representative of the British embassy being summoned to the foreign affairs ministry.

The British government has yet to comment.

The move appears to the latest in a series of tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats by Russia and the UK.

Britain expelled a Russian diplomat last month with the foreign secretary, David Lammy, saying that action had been taken “following Russia’s recent expulsion of a British diplomat” in November.

Russia had accused the British diplomat of giving false information and spying.

In January, the Guardian reported on how Russian diplomats accessed a private area of parliament in a major security breach just before Christmas that alarmed security officials and prompted private warnings from the speakers of both houses.

A range of UK politicians and journalists have also been barred from entering Russia since the start of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Dozens of others, including the deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, and other cabinet members, were also added by Russia to a so-called “stop list”.