LONDON, September 18. /TASS/. Russian Ambassador Andrey Kelin told diplomats at the UK Foreign Office, where he had been summoned, that the expulsion of six British diplomats from Moscow was a logical response to restrictive measures imposed by the UK, the Russian embassy to London told TASS.

"In the context of the discussion of the current situation in bilateral relations, Andrey Kelin, at the request of the British side, explained the motives behind the Russian side’s decision taken this August to terminate the accreditation of six employees of the UK embassy in Moscow. It was emphasized that it was a logical response to the unilateral restrictive measures announced by the British side in May under false pretexts, which involved the enforced termination of tenure for some Russian diplomats in London," the Russian embassy said.

The embassy added that "the ambassador emphasized that while adopting this decision, Moscow took into account the solid evidence presented by the Russian competent authorities to make sure that the work of the mentioned Britons had gone far beyond the framework of diplomatic activities stipulated in the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations."