Russian diplomats broke from U.K. Parliament tour and wandered ‘out of bounds’ in ‘major security breach’

A small group of Russian diplomats broke off from a public tour of the Houses of Parliament in London last month and entered a part of the House of Lords that was “out of bounds,” The Guardian reported on Thursday, calling the incident “a major security breach.” The newspaper said it’s unclear how the diplomats ended up in the building, given that the Russian ambassador, diplomats, and officials based at the embassy in London have been banned from visiting Britain’s parliament since 2022 after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

Sources told The Guardian that officials don’t know “whether the group was on a guided tour sponsored by a politician or if they requested one from the parliamentary visitors’ service.” “We suspect they were just wanting to crow to the Kremlin that they had infiltrated the British parliament,” a parliamentary source told the paper.