Britain and Russia are in the middle of their most intense diplomatic crisis since the Cold War over the poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury earlier this month.
Theresa May expelled 23 Russian diplomats from the UK earlier week, prompting a reciprocal action from Moscow. Despite losing about 30% of its staff, though, activity in the embassy still seemed like business as usual.
Business Insider attended a press conference on Thursday with Russia’s ambassador to the UK, Alexander Yakovenko, and was given access to most — but not all — of the opulent building.
Scroll down to take a look inside.
The Russian embassy is one of many on Kensington Palace Gardens in west London, known locally as “Embassy Row.” It’s the personal residence of Russia’s ambassador to London, Alexander Yakovenko.
The embassy recently lost about 30% of its staff as Theresa May expelled 23 Russian diplomats from the UK over the Skripal case. There used to be 78 Russian officials; now there are 55. Here they are going home:
Kensington Palace Gardens is home to embassies of other countries, including Saudi Arabia, France, and Nepal. Billionaires such as Roman Abramovich, Leonard Blavatnik, and Lakshmi Mittal all had houses here as of 2014. The average house here costs £35.7 million.
Source: The Guardian
Read more: The 9 most expensive streets in the UK, where you need more than £11 million to buy a house
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See Also:
- The police officer poisoned with nerve agent is out of hospital, but says his life will ‘never be the same’
- Boris Johnson says Putin hosting the World Cup is like Hitler hosting the 1936 Olympics
- Russia is pushing these 14 mutually contradictory theories to claim they weren’t behind the nerve agent attack
