Moscow on July 14 slammed Britain for denying entry visas to the Russian delegation to this week's international air show in Farnborough and threatened "symmetrical" measures.
“We qualify this British move as patently unfriendly and expect official explanations from the British side about the current situation, which does not fit into the framework of normal relations between our nations. We also reserve the right to symmetrical action, as is customary in diplomatic practice,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Yury Matery said in a statement.
“This situation makes us justifiably indignant. We have always assumed that it is in the interests of Britain as the organizer of large-scale international events that they should be successful and maximally representative. But this is by no means the first instance of problems with issuing visas to participants in official Russian delegations to Farnborough shows. There have been problems for the same reason with regard to other international forums in Britain, including an international exhibition of ecological foods in April this year and the Info Security Europe 2014 exhibition in summer this year,” he said.
