Russia calls UK's claim as 'evidence' that NATO escalating tensions around Ukraine

Russia on Sunday rejected the claim made by the UK government saying it did not provide corroboration to back it up. 

Britain's Foreign Secretary Liz Truss had said Russia is looking to replace the government of Ukraine with a pro-Moscow administration.  

According to Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, “The disinformation spread by the British Foreign Office is more evidence that it is the NATO countries, led by the Anglo-Saxons, who are escalating tensions around Ukraine.” 

“We call on the British Foreign Office to stop provocative activities, stop spreading nonsense.”

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The accusations come at the end of a week of intense international diplomacy, which concluded with Antony Blinken and Sergei Lavrov, Washington and Moscow's top diplomats, agreeing to keep working to ease tensions.

Truss urged Russia to “deescalate, end its campaigns of aggression and disinformation, and pursue a path of diplomacy,” and reiterated Britain’s view that “any Russian military incursion into Ukraine would be a massive strategic mistake with severe costs.”

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Amid diplomatic efforts to defuse the crisis, UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace is expected to meet Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu for talks in Moscow. 

Tensions have soared in recent weeks as tens of thousands of Russian troops mass on Ukraine's border, along with an arsenal of tanks, fighting vehicles, artillery and missiles.

Russia has put pressure on Ukraine since the 2014 uprising, Moscow seized the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and a few weeks later a pro-Russian insurgency broke out in eastern Ukraine that has since claimed more than 13,000 lives.

(With inputs from agencies)