Russia has quietly downgraded its diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom by leaving their embassy in London without an ambassador, it has emerged as Moscow warned of “consequences” for Britain supplying Kyiv with attack drones.
The Russian Ambassador to London, longstanding veteran of Russia’s diplomatic corps Andrey Kelin whose service predates the modern Russian state, running back to the Soviet Union in 1979, was withdrawn in July and hasn’t been replaced. Kelin had been in post since 2019 and had remained despite several distinct episodes of relations cooling between London and Moscow, including fallout from the Salisbury attack, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Britain’s decision to help Ukraine resist, so it isn’t immediately clear why the Kremlin has decided to step back from full relations now.
The Times of London notes while there has been a defacto downgrade in diplomatic relations between London and Moscow over the failure to appoint a new ambassador, it does not mean there is no diplomatic contact whatsoever. Britain’s ambassador to Russia Nigel Casey remains in post in Moscow, and the Russian chargé d’affaires remains at the embassy in London, standing in as a defacto ambassador.
A spokesman from the embassy portrayed the returned diplomat Kelin as a dove who had sought to keep relations alive, rather than the Kremlin stooge he was described as by some. They are reported to have said Kelin put “considerable efforts to preserve contacts and channels of communication” and decried that Britain chose a “path of confrontation instead”.
They went on that the erstwhile Russian ambassador “left Britain in the hope that a more constructive and respectful dialogue could eventually be restored, should the UK reconsider its policies towards our country”.
Responding to the news, former British Defence Attaché to Moscow John Foreman posted on social media to say he was “glad to see the back of the loathsome Kelin”. Of the long gap between Kelin leaving without a replacement announced, Foreman went on: “although a gap between ambassadors is not unprecedented the embassy’s strident ‘consequences’ statement this week and the huge deterioration of bilateral relations since 2018 and especially since the start of the war make me wonder if Moscow will permanently downgrade the relationship this time, by default by not replacing him.”
As reported earlier this week, ambassador in post or not the Russian embassy in London remained in lock-step with Moscow to make dark threats around Britain’s continuing support for Ukraine’s self-defence against the Russian invasion.
After the revelation that Britain had supplied Ukraine with long-range attack drones that Kyiv had used to strike deep inside the Russian Federation, Russian state media propagated nuclear war talk and was followed up by the embassy in London which accused the UK of being party to “terrorist attacks”. They said: “London’s actions will inevitably have consequences, for which it will have to answer. The deeper its involvement in this conflict and the greater its support for the terrorist machine of Kyiv, the higher the price will be.”