Russia’s strained relations with Britain deteriorated further yesterday when local transmission of the BBC Russian Service was taken off air for being “foreign propaganda”.

In an echo of the Cold War, when BBC broadcasts were jammed by the Soviet Union, the FM broadcast station in Moscow said that it was taking off air all BBC Russian Service transmissions. Most Muscovites who listen to the BBC’s six hours of daily programmes tune in on the FM signal.

The step was seen as the latest punitive action by Moscow in the bitter row that broke out between Britain and Russia over the murder in November of Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB officer who was poisoned in London with the radioactive isotope polonium-210.

At the time of his death broadcasts of the BBC Russian Service in Moscow and St Petersburg mysteriously went off air for “technical” reasons. Richard Sambrook, the director of BBC Global News, said that he would be appealing to the Russian broadcasting authorities to reconsider their decision.

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The BBC is still able to transmit in Moscow, St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg on medium-wave and short-wave frequencies and over the internet at bbcrussian.com. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said that it would support the BBC World Service in its attempt to reverse the Russian decision. It is unlikely, however, that Russia will back down, with relations between the two countries at their most strained since the Cold War.

The silencing of the BBC’s broadcasts follows a clear policy set by President Putin to shut down independent or critical media outlets in Russia. Since he came to power, all television channels, most of the press and many radio stations have ceased to criticise the Kremlin. During the same period 20 journalists have been killed in mysterious circumstances.

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