Russian police have launched a criminal probe after a person — thought to be an employee of the British embassy — allegedly assaulted a freelance journalist, the Russian interior ministry says.
The 23-year-old journalist claimed that she had suffered “physical and moral injury” in the alleged assault, at Vnukovo airport in Moscow.
She had been attempting to interview British diplomats who were arriving at the airport, the interior ministry said.
“While the journalist was performing her professional duties, an unknown man, presumably an employee of the British Embassy in the Russian Federation, who was meeting the delegation, pushed her, causing the girl to lose her balance,” the ministry said.
The British embassy had ignored a police request to identify the alleged offender and provide information about his diplomatic status, it said.
Russian authorities would work to ensure that the person concerned was punished, irrespective of their status and nationality, the ministry added.
Reuters has requested comment from Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
The announcement came a day after Britain announced it was expelling a Russian diplomat in retaliation for Moscow throwing out a British diplomat last November. Russia had accused the diplomat of spying, which London emphatically denied.
Relations between Britain and Russia have plunged to post-Cold War lows since the start of the Ukraine war. Britain has joined successive waves of sanctions against Russia and provided arms to Ukraine.
Russia has also become involved in an escalating row with France this week over the accreditation of journalists.
Russia said on Thursday that it had refused to renew the accreditation of Le Monde‘s correspondent due to France’s refusal to issue a visa to a Russian reporter, leaving the renowned French daily absent from Moscow for the first time since the 1950s.
Le Monde, one of France’s most influential newspapers, criticised what it said was the “covert expulsion of our journalist”.
It said that reliable reporting from Russia was more important than ever and France believed that Russian journalists who were refused visas by Paris were in fact working for Russian intelligence.
France’s foreign ministry called on Russia to reverse its decision and said that if it did not do so, there would be a response.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the French journalist had been expelled not because of any problem with him personally, but because Russia had been forced to retaliate against France.
– Additional reporting by Guy Faulconbridge
