Russian Foreign Ministry says sanctions imposed against 30 UK citizens

Russia has imposed sanctions against 30 British citizens as a retaliatory measure against London's hostile actions. The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on November 26.

"A decision has been taken to include in the Russian stop-list a number of representatives of the political establishment, military bloc, high-tech sector enterprises, as well as the journalistic corps of Great Britain who have shown themselves in the anti-Russian field," the Russian Foreign Ministry said on its website.

The list includes the heads and deputies of most ministries, members of the board of directors of several companies, members of parliament, the commander of the 51st squadron of the British Air Force and two journalists representing The Times and Daily Mail. The ministry said that work on expanding the Russian stop list will continue.

"The Russian Foreign Ministry is once again forced to draw attention to the ongoing aggressive anti-Russian rhetoric of the British authorities, systematically imposed by London <...> illegitimate unilateral restrictions, as well as thoughtless policy <...> to support the neo-Nazi Kiev regime, pursuing purely vested geopolitical interests," the document explains.

Moscow once again pointed to the futility of this course and called on London to abandon it in favor of mutually respectful interaction for the purposes of world security.

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said earlier in the day that Wilkes Edward Pryor, an employee of the British Embassy in Moscow, was engaged in intelligence and subversive activities. He was stripped of his accreditation and will be expelled from Russia. It is specified that he replaced one of the British intelligence officers who were found among the diplomats of the embassy earlier.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova indicated that British Ambassador to Moscow Nigel Casey was summoned to the ministry in connection with the incident. Casey spent more than an hour in the building of the Russian Foreign Ministry and refused to give comments to journalists. It was later reported that the ambassador was strongly protested.

Before that, on September 13, the FSB said that the British diplomatic mission in Moscow had uncovered the intelligence activities of six spies under the cover of diplomatic work. Their accreditation was terminated because of the threat to the security of the Russian Federation. The spies were expelled. It was specified that the diplomats were preparing provocations in the country under special instructions. The British Foreign Ministry refused to apologize. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that it shared the position of the FSB and called on London to abandon its hostile policy towards Moscow.