Britain has secured the greatest expulsion of Russian diplomats in history by sharing "unprecedented intelligence information" with dozens of foreign countries about the attempted murder of former spy Sergei Skripal. Almost 30 countries and international organizations, including the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, have expelled or refused to accredit over 150 Russian diplomats in the last 72 hours. The coordinated move came in response to the alleged attack on Skripal, a former Russian intelligence officer who lived in England from the 2010. Skripal left Russia after being released from prison as part of an espionage exchange between Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. He had previously been caught spying on Russia for Britain's secret intelligence service, known as MI6. Skripal, 66 years, and his daughter Yulia, 33 years, are currently in a coma in the hospital.
The United States, Canada and Australia reunited with most European countries in expelling Russian spies after Britain accused Moscow of using a Soviet-era nerve agent to attack the Skripals. But according to a senior British government official, the coordinated expulsions were not accidental. The official, who declined to be named, told the Financial Times that the British government has made the unprecedented decision to share "unprecedented degrees of intelligence" with dozens of countries in order to persuade them to take action against the Kremlin. The information shared included comprehensive intelligence assessments of Russian assets. Comprehensive intelligence assessments are rarely, if ever, shared by nations. The latter typically share stock ratings - short snippets of analysis produced by intelligence agencies - with allied nations. But in this case, British officials were allowed to share comprehensive intelligence reports, which included a "detailed scientific analysis of the nerve agent used in the attack," The Financial Times said.
Sharing complete intelligence reports is likely to reveal how much a nation knows about the secret activities of its adversaries and could end up harming its information gathering efforts. But the newspaper said that full intelligence shared with dozens of countries around the world convinced them that "there was no other plausible alternative than to accuse the Russian state that was behind the Skripal attack. Furthermore, the newspaper said, London has shared intelligence with foreign governments that have underlined the existence of an "explicit" assassination program supported by the state run by the Kremlin. The program presumably includes goals in numerous countries around the world, The Financial Times said. The Russian government vehemently rejected the assertions of London and suggested that the attack on the Skripals was part of a British intelligence operation aimed at turning Russia into an international pariah.