Russia’s ambassador has called Australia’s media “disgraceful” for its coverage of the expulsion of two Russian diplomats accused of being spies in Canberra over the Skripal poisoning in the UK.

Grigory Logvinov spent almost an hour conducting a free-wheeling media conference in Canberra last week, denying Russia was involved with the nerve agent attack on former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury.

In a statement released on Tuesday, Logvinov lashed out at the reporters, who he said had humiliated themselves by asking about the poisoning.

“There is no real evidence of the Russian involvement in poisoning of the Skripals,” Logvinov said in the statement.

“It was verified once again during the press conference, when the journalists put forward just repetitions of the unfounded accusations and personal attacks (first of all, humiliating for themselves) against all my reasonable arguments.”

Grigory Logvinov at a press conference at the Russian embassy in Canberra last Wednesday. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

The ambassador was unhappy at being described as “increasingly Soviet-Red in complexion”, a “Bond villain meets Lowes catalogue” and the description of Russians as famously blunt.

“In the ‘wild’ Russia, such statements would trigger criminal prosecution as the deliberate incitement of discord between different ethnic groups,” Logvinov’s statement said.

The two Canberra-based diplomats have left Australia, while Russia has expelled two Australian diplomats in return.

Britain has expelled 23 Russians, the US 60 and France and Germany four.