Expelling hundreds of suspected agents from the country’s embassies has made counterintelligence harder, a source told the paper Russia has stepped up its intelligence work in the West and is innovating its spycraft, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing interviews with analysts and intelligence officials.

The bloc’s envoys have refused to meet with Russia’s Sergey Lavrov, the foreign ministry has said Ambassadors from EU member states in Russia have “completely discredited themselves” and failed their own citizens, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said, accusing them of refusing to meet Moscow’s top diplomat Sergey Lavrov.

Many Western countries have already launched mass cyber attacks against Russian infrastructure ahead of the upcoming presidential election, a senior diplomat at the Russian Foreign Ministry has said. Ambassador-at-Large Gennady Askaldovich announced this at Tuesday’s session of the Federation Council’s committee for protecting state sovereignty and preventing meddling into Russia’s internal affairs.