Moscow has strongly protested to London in connection with the revealed facts that some employees of the British diplomatic mission knowingly provided false information when obtaining a Russian visa amid a diplomatic scandal and the expulsion from the Russian Federation of two employees of the British Embassy accused of intelligence activities.

Russia accused two British diplomats on Monday of spying and gave them two weeks to leave the country, reinforcing the downward trajectory of Moscow's diplomatic relations with Europe even as it negotiates to restore ties with the United States.

The speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, said on Friday that Britain would have to return Moscow money that London had decided to illegally gift to Ukraine to fund Kyiv's military.

London sees a threat to its interests in promoting dialogue between Moscow and Washington on resolving the conflict over Ukraine. This was stated by the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) of the Russian Federation.

In an interview on The World With Yalda Hakim, Andrei Kelin says Moscow told Washington it believes its territorial advances in Ukraine "should be recognised" as part of any peace deal.

The Russian foreign intelligence service, the SVR has made “malicious” claims that the UK is the largest “warmonger” in the world. The SVR has accused London of sabotaging the

Counter-terrorism police said the case exposes how Russians are contracting out spying operations to criminals and proxy groups.

Influential Russian parliamentarians dismissed a summit of European leaders in London on Sunday, saying it had produced no plan to settle the war in Ukraine.

Tension between the United States and Ukraine, laid bare in the Oval Office meeting of Trump and Zelensky, is seen in Moscow as a “gift.”