[impossiblefork]

Notice though that the US specifically chose to give a reason for the explusions as espionage activities. Spain expelled those it expelled over 'Russia's terrible actions'.

I think we can take the reasons for the expulsions as correct.

[roenxi]

The reasons are honest insofar as yes, the Russians expelled were involved in espionage. That part that has me tagging you as naive is you seem to believe that this was news in 2022.

It is the Russian embassy. The US spooks are monitoring it very closely. It is not a serious position to say that they suddenly discovered that espionage was afoot a few days after the invasion. I mean, it is completely plausible that the invasion made them say "we're about to hit the Russians hard, now is the time to disrupt their espionage activities". But the existence of those espionage activities has been a given since for the entire history of Russian diplomatic missions in the US.

The US is certainly not going to expel diplomats for spying under ordinary circumstances. We can see that because places like the Chinese, French and British and whatever other embassies are still allowed to exist. Maybe there are some African or Pacific Island embassies that are incompetent and just exist to chat, I dunno. But we know how the serious players use embassies this has been a thing for centuries.