Staged mob greets UK envoy in Moscow
Russia has warned of ‘dangerous consequences’ after it summoned the uK’s ambassador to show her ‘evidence’ that Britain helped plan attacks on the Nord stream gas pipes and its Black sea fleet.
Deborah Bronnert was hauled into the foreign ministry in Moscow yesterday and forced to run a gauntlet of stage-managed protesters holding placards that said ‘Britain is a terrorist state’ and ‘Britain will answer for the Nord stream’.
Moscow said it had delivered a ‘strong protest’ to Mrs Bronnert, adding that ‘such confrontational actions of the English carry a threat of escalation and could lead to unpredictable and dangerous consequences’.
The foreign ministry said it had given the ambassador ‘ concrete facts’ of London’s ‘hostile provocations’.
‘a demand was put forward to stop them immediately,’ it said.
The uK has not given its own briefing of the meeting, but denies carrying out any direct attacks on Russia or its assets.
Moscow claimed British military specialists were training ukrainian special forces in the southern city of Ochakiv, ‘including training for underwater saboteurs for operations in the waters of the Black and azov seas’.
Russia last week also accused the uK of being implicated in explosions on the Nord stream pipelines in september.
The uK said these were ‘false claims on an epic scale.’
Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Russian security council and a close friend of Vladimir Putin, repeated the allegations against Britain in a speech yesterday. ‘according to the Russian defence ministry, representatives of the British naval forces took part in [the] planning and implementation [of attacks],’ he said.
Western officials said on Wednesday that Russia’s increasingly wild allegations about nuclear weapons and sabotage attacks were a way to distract from its failing war.
it came as Russian flags were taken down and thousands of troops withdrawn as the Kremlin began to give up its occupation of
Kherson in southern ukraine. a complete retreat from the strategic significant province is expected in the coming weeks as the Kremlin’s military offensive goes into reverse.
Last night, Western officials predicted Moscow will claim its troops are withdrawing from occupied areas as a humanitarian gesture.
They say such an explanation would be misleading because, in reality, Russia no longer has the weaponry, equipment and troops to preserve its frontlines.
One official said: ‘There have been some spectacular changes in the control of terrain.
‘a withdrawal from Kherson is definitely happening, in an organised, deliberate manner.’
‘Dangerous consequences’