London – Britain’s foreign ministry on Thursday summoned Russia’s most senior diplomat in the country to condemn what it called an “egregious and reckless” drone attack at Leipzig airport last month, a spokesperson said.
The UK action came after EU countries on Wednesday summoned Russia’s envoys and discussed fresh sanctions over the incident involving an explosive-laden drone that Germany has blamed on Moscow.
“Today we summoned the Russian charge d’affaires to condemn the attack in the strongest terms,” the UK foreign ministry spokesperson said in a statement, calling the incident “the latest in a clear pattern of attempts by the Russian state to undermine our collective security”.
The spokesperson said that the UK underlined at the meeting that it “will continue to expose Russian hostile activity at every level”.
The Russian Embassy said in a post on Telegram that Charge D’Affaires Vasily Tsyganov had received the official protest at the Foreign Office and the “baseless and absurd accusations… were categorically rejected”.
The most recent Russian ambassador to London, Andrei Kelin, has left and Tsyganov is the only senior diplomat named on the embassy’s website.
The embassy accused Kyiv’s allies of “coordinated provocation”, warning that any escalation would receive an “appropriate and carefully calibrated response”.
President Vladimir Putin has branded Germany’s retaliatory actions — shutting a Russian consulate and ending the contract for a cultural centre in Berlin — a “mistake, a serious one”.
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Source: AFP
