United Kingdom

LONDON, May 16 (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Monday that reported attempts by the U.S. FBI and CIA to recruit embassy staff in Washington were unacceptable.

Russia's ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, told state media that embassy employees had been threatened with physical violence, and were frequently badgered in the vicinity of the Embassy to work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the Central Intelligence Agency.

LONDON, May 16 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Monday that Russia would respond if NATO began to bolster the military infrastructure of Sweden and Finland which have both decided to join the U.S. military alliance after the invasion of Ukraine.

Putin, Russia's paramount leader since the last day of 1999, has repeatedly cited the post-Soviet enlargement of the NATO alliance eastwards towards Russia's borders as a reason for the conflict of Ukraine.

LONDON (AP) — Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday renewed British threats to break a Brexit agreement with the European Union, blaming it for a political crisis that’s blocking the formation of a new government in Northern Ireland.

Ahead of a visit to Belfast, Johnson said there would be “a necessity to act” if the EU doesn’t agree to overhaul post-Brexit trade rules that he says are destabilizing Northern Ireland’s delicate political balance.

LONDON, May 15 (Reuters) - Russia has probably lost around a third of the ground forces it deployed to Ukraine and its offensive in the Donbas region "has lost momentum and fallen significantly behind schedule", British military intelligence said on Sunday.

"Despite small-scale initial advances, Russia has failed to achieve substantial territorial gains over the past month whilst sustaining consistently high levels of attrition," the British defence ministry said on Twitter.

15 May 2022; MEMO: In response to Shireen Abu Aqleh's murder by Israeli sniper, protesters today held 55 paper press jackets outside the BBC headquarters in London to represent the 55 journalists killed by Israel since 2000.

This was just one of several powerful visual representations of the ongoing Nakba in today's march for Palestine in London, attended by 15,000 people.

LONDON, May 14 (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday that the West had announced a "total hybrid war" against Russia and it was hard to predict how long it would last.

In a speech on the 80th day since Russia invaded Ukraine, Lavrov pointed to the barrage of sanctions imposed by the West against Moscow and attempted to portray Russia as the target, not the perpetrator, of aggression.

13 May 2022; MEMO: Former British-Israeli treasurer of the UK's Conservative Party has been reported to authorities over suspicions of money laundering after a six-figure donation towards the prime minister's election campaign was apparently sourced from a Russian bank account.

LONDON, May 13 (Reuters) - Britain said on Friday it had imposed its latest round of sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, targeting Russian President Vladimir Putin's financial network, including his ex-wife and cousins.

"We are exposing and targeting the shady network propping up Putin's luxury lifestyle and tightening the vice on his inner circle," foreign minister Liz Truss said in a statement.

"We will keep going with sanctions on all those aiding and abetting Putin's aggression until Ukraine prevails."

LONDON, May 12 (Reuters) - Russia said on Thursday that Finland's bid to join NATO was a hostile move that "definitely" posed a threat to its security.

The Kremlin said it would respond but declined to spell out how, saying this would depend on how close NATO moves military assets towards the 1,300 km (800-mile) Finnish-Russian frontier.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said Russia would need to take "retaliatory steps, both of a military-technical and other nature, in order to stop threats to its national security arising".

12 May 2022; MEMO: Voters in the UK will be lobbying parliament today, a day after Israel targeted Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, calling on MPs to end their complicity in Israeli apartheid and for sanctions on the occupation state.