MOSCOW  A British cultural organization at the center of a dispute between the Kremlin and Britain closed its office in St. Petersburg on Wednesday under pressure from Russia’s intelligence service, which summoned the organization’s entire Russian staff for questioning, Russian and British officials said.

The closing, which a British official said was temporary, occurred the morning after the organization’s director, Stephen Kinnock, was stopped in front of his home by the Russian authorities and accused of drunken driving. The British government said he had been falsely accused.

“First thing to say, right up front: he was not drunk,” said James Barbour, a spokesman for the British Embassy here, who suggested that the Russian allegations, which were widely circulated by the Russian news media, were a pretext used to intensify an already bitter dispute.

Mr. Kinnock, whose status as an accredited diplomat gives him legal protections, was not arrested or charged with any crime. But the public allegations against him, and the questioning of the staff of the British Council, which is the official cultural arm of the British government, were condemned in London, where David Miliband, Britain’s foreign secretary, accused Russia of “intimidation.”