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This is the moment two British diplomats were flagged down in Russia to be accused of filming at a military air base.

Moscow sought to maximise the incident by releasing footage of "police" tailing their official car, and images of the men's identity cards after they were pulled in at a checkpoint.

Russia announced on Tuesday that it had "caught" the pair, named as Air Force Attache Brigadier-General Carl Scott and Assistant Naval Attache Captain Ryan Coatalen-Hodgson, "illegally snooping on Mozdok military airport" in the Caucasus.

They were accused of "secret observation" and using "special photo and video recording equipment", according to an FSB secret service source.

They entered the region - close to Chechnya - without "appropriate permission", it was claimed.

Dashcam footage, from early March, shows what is described as a police vehicle as it trails a British diplomatic car with the 001 registration assigned to the United Kingdom in Russia.

The Cold War-style sequence shows the tailing operation for several miles through the North Ossetian countryside, before road traffic policemen wave the diplomats to stop at a checkpoint.

Here the diplomats were made to show their diplomatic identity cards and Scott held up his driving license.

The British officials refused to show the Russians what if anything they had filmed at the airfield, citing diplomatic immunity, said Moscow reports.

The footage was shown by pro-Kremlin news site LifeNews which boasted the video showed Russia "detaining British diplomat-spies".

In fact, Moscow has taken no action against the diplomats who remain in post at the British Embassy in Moscow.

A spokesman said: "It is routine for defence attaches to travel around their host countries in the course of their diplomatic duties.

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"This is no different in Russia. The defence attaches from the British embassy in Moscow submitted to all relevant checks requested by the Russian authorities."