Russia said on Thursday that it had withdrawn accreditation from Le Monde's Moscow correspondent Benjamin Quénelle due to Paris's refusal to issue a visa to a Russian reporter, leaving the paper without a presence in Moscow for the first time since the 1950s.

Britain on Thursday summoned the Russian ambassador to London for a meeting with a senior British official to revoke the accreditation of a Russian diplomat. "This is in response to Russia's unprovoked and baseless decision to strip the accreditation of a British diplomat in Moscow in November,

A Russian diplomat has been expelled from the UK in the latest escalation of a tit-for-tat spat after Moscow threw out a British official last year. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said action had been taken "following Russia's recent expulsion of a British diplomat" in November.