Russia’s ambassador to the UN has suggested that Britain should “clean its conscience” by “giving back” the Falklands and Gibraltar before it passes judgment on the Kremlin’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.

Vitaly Churkin was responding to his British counterpart, Matthew Rycroft, at a hearing of the UN Security Council in New York.

“I can only remind you that everything began with a coup, largely supported from outside the country,” Mr Churkin said in reference to the ousting of Ukraine’s pro-Moscow president, Viktor Yanukovych, after mass protests in 2014.

“As for the position of the UK representative, I would like to advise: give back the Malvinas [Falkland] Islands, give back Gibraltar, return the Chagos archipelago in the Indian Ocean, which you turned into a huge