MOSCOW — U.S. spies under diplomatic cover sneaking along Russia’s borders with Europe. Ten thousand dollars and a recruitment letter shoved into a Russian diplomat’s car.

Those are just some of the sensational allegations that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov leveled against the United States on Tuesday as he laid out Moscow’s case against Washington in the hidden intelligence war. Many of the alleged incidents were previously undisclosed. In Washington, State Department spokesman John Kirby declined to respond directly to Lavrov’s allegations about trying to turn diplomats into spies.

For months, Russian officials have seethed at accusations that they hacked the U.S. presidential election and were harassing U.S. diplomats in Russia. In a nationally televised news conference, Lavrov fired back, complaining that U.S. Embassy employees in Moscow were disguising themselves to join in Russian opposition protests and that Russian diplomats in the United States were increasingly being targeted for recruitment.

Read the whole story from The Washington Post.

Featured image courtesy of AP.