The scale of those expulsions, together with the rollout of Western economic sanctions designed to isolate Russia, had proved a surprisingly potent test for Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, he added. Well before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Britain was especially sensitive to the activities of Russian agents, and its pushback against Moscow’s spy networks intensified after the nerve agent poisoning of Sergei V. Skripal, the former Russian agent, and his daughter, Yulia, in Salisbury, England, in 2018. Since that episode prompted Britain to expel 23 Russian diplomats on espionage grounds,…