Russia’s ambassador to the UK, Andrei Kelin, has said the treatment of Russian journalists in the UK is reason the BBC’s Sarah Rainsford has been expelled from the country.
In this interview with the BBC’s Andrew Marr, he insists the BBC correspondent will be allowed back into the country, where she has reported for years, once UK visas have been issued to Russian reporters.
Russian journalists continue to work freely in the UK providing they act within the law.
Sarah Rainsford was told she’d been barred from Russia by the FSB security service in August and was labelled a ‘security threat’ – a label that she and the BBC deny.
The move comes during an unprecedented assault on rights and freedoms in Russia, where critics of the Kremlin are increasingly being labelled as hostile ‘agents’ of the West.
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