The Kremlin said on Friday that an investigation into the BBC's work in Russia was a response to Britain's treatment of Russia's RT TV channel and called some BBC reports tendentious and politically-motivated.

The Kremlin was commenting after Russia's media regulator said earlier on Friday it would carry out checks to determine if the BBC World News channel and BBC internet sites complied with Russian law.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said many questions had accumulated about the BBC's coverage of Russia and of Moscow's actions in Syria over a long period of time.