Pro-Putin mob yells abuse at Britain’s ambassador to Moscow

Russia has warned of ‘dangerous consequences’ after summoning the UK’s ambassador to show her ‘evidence’ that Britain helped plan attacks on the Nord Stream pipes and its Black Sea Fleet.

Deborah Bronnert was hauled into the foreign ministry in Moscow this morning 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 Bronnert, adding that ‘such confrontational actions of the English carry a threat of escalation and could lead to unpredictable and dangerous consequences.’

The UK has not given its own run-down of the meeting, but denies carrying out any direct attacks on Russia or its assets. Britain has been upfront about providing aid to Ukraine’s war effort, which Moscow was warned about before Putin invaded.  

Deborah Bronnert, the British ambassador to Russia, was summoned to the foreign ministry this morning to see ‘evidence’ the UK helped attack the Nord Stream pipes and Black Sea Fleet

Protesters – who appeared to be stage-managed – carried banners reading ‘Britain is a terrorist state’ and ‘Britain will answer for the Nord Stream’

Bronnert arrived at Moscow’s towering Soviet-era foreign ministry building, with a line of people chanting ‘Britain is a terrorist state’, state media showed.

The foreign ministry said it had handed ‘concrete facts’ of London’s ‘hostile provocations’ to her.

‘A demand was put forward to stop them immediately,’ it said.

Moscow claimed UK 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 says these are ‘false claims on an epic scale.’

Western officials said on Wednesday that Russia’s increasingly wild allegations about nuclear weapons and sabotage attacks are a way to distract from its failing war.

The protests follow a frenzy of anti-British claims, while demands to retaliate against the UK have come from Russian officials and state TV.

The UK is being spuriously blamed for explosions in the Nord Stream gas pipelines and a drone attack on the naval port Sevastopol in annexed Crimea.

‘The UK ambassador will be summoned and will be given the appropriate materials,’ said foreign ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova a day ahead of the meeting.

The official alleged ‘the participation of British specialists in the preparation of Kyiv’s attacks’.

Russia has ramped up the rhetoric against the UK as its invasion in Ukraine has faltered, with Western officials saying the wild claims are a distraction tactic

Demonstrations in central Moscow are rare and usually quickly crushed by police – suggesting Thursday’s action was carried out with tacit support from authorities

Britain is likely being targeted because it is leading support for Ukraine – having given more than any other country bar the US

If anti-Putin protesters want to organise a demonstration in Moscow, it is almost impossible to get permission.

Close Putin crony Nikolai Patrushev – secretary of the Russian security council – repeated the allegations against Britain in a Moscow speech today.

‘According to the Russian defence ministry, representatives of the British naval forces took part in [the] planning and implementation [of attacks],’ he said.

‘It is impossible not to pay attention to the SMS message, which at that time British Prime Minister Liz Truss immediately reports to US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken after the gas pipelines were blown up that ‘everything is done’.’

He claimed: ‘Literally from the first minutes after the reports of explosions on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, an active campaign was launched to accuse Russia.

‘However, it is obvious that the main beneficiary of these terrorist attacks is the United States.’

Ms Zakharova had accused Bronnert of ‘criminal hypocrisy’ in laying flowers at the Solovetsky Stone on the eve of the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repression while Britain was supposedly involved in the drone attacks on the weekend.

Russia’s Black Sea Fleet was targeted by drone boats over the weekend in an operation that Moscow said was orchestrated by British special forces

Smoke rises over Sevastopol – Russia’s main naval base in Crimea – after it was attacked by drones over the weekend