MOSCOW, April 5. /TASS/. Checks at British airports will not affect most Russians coming to the United Kingdom, the Russian Embassy in London wrote on Facebook on Thursday.
"In response to questions we have been getting, we would like to reassure Russian citizens that they will not face any issues while visiting Great Britain," the Facebook post reads. "We are pleased to welcome Russians who come to the United Kingdom for tourism, educational or business purposes," the embassy noted.
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"The recently introduced additional airport checks of those coming from Russia will not affect most travellers," the embassy said, adding that "Great Britain still welcomes friendly relations between our people."
On March 30, the Russian flag carrier Aeroflot’s plane was searched at London’s Heathrow airport.
Russian-British relations deteriorated in the wake of an incident, which took place in the British city of Salisbury on April 4, when former Russian military intelligence (GRU) Colonel Sergei Skripal Sergei Skripal, who had been convicted in Russia of spying for Great Britain and later swapped for Russian intelligence officers, and his daughter Yulia suffered the effects of an alleged nerve agent in the British city of Salisbury. Claiming that the substance used in the attack had been a Novichok-class nerve agent developed in the Soviet Union, London rushed to accuse Russia of being involved in the incident. Moscow rejected all of the United Kingdom’s accusations, saying that a program aimed at developing such a substance had existed neither in the Soviet Union nor in Russia.