British and American diplomats in Moscow will refuse to adopt new addresses for their embassies after officials renamed streets in honor of eastern Ukraines pro-Kremlin separatist republics.City authorities renamed the area close to the British Embassy on Monday, effectively changing the buildings address to 1 Luhansk Peoples Republic Square.The move comes less than two weeks after officials similarly altered the official address of the United States Embassy building to 1 Donetsk Peoples Republic Square.British embassy staff said that they will not use the new address, state-run news agency RIA Novosti reported Thursday.Diplomats reportedly told journalists that the current address of the British Embassy in Moscow is listed on its official website, where it remains 10 Smolenskaya Naberezhnaya.United States officials, meanwhile, have removed the embassys former address 8 Bolshoi Devyatinsky Lane from its website, instead only referring to the buildings location via its geographic coordinates.London does not recognize the so-called Luhansk and Donetsk peoples republics, the British embassy said in a statement this week.Renaming streets in Russia is the responsibility of local authorities, but it will certainly have no effect on the British governments position on Russias illegal invasion of Ukraine, the embassys spokespersonsaid in a Telegram message.Russias postal service hassaid that no letters will reach the British embassy at its old address.The formal changes to the United States and British embassies addresses followed online votes on the Moscow City Hall-run platform.Moscow councilors proposed the street name changes, which saw citizens asked to vote on their favorite name to honor the defenders of Donbas.The majority Russian-speaking region in southeastern Ukraine has been a major focus during the Kremlins four-month invasion of the country, with Russian troops claiming they are liberating the area.President Vladimir Putin officially recognized Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states days before launching his full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb.
24.