Moscow:
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin on Monday told the Russian delegation at the Farnborough air show to go home after being snubbed by the British government over the Ukraine conflict.
"I recommend our delegation to wind up its participation in the show and return home," Rogozin, who is in charge of the defence sector, wrote on Twitter.
Britain's Foreign Office said on Saturday that no Russian delegates had been invited as government guests to the key aviation event "due to Russian actions in Ukraine".
Britain also said it would remove Russia from the list of countries eligible to buy British planes "in order to discourage Russian attendance" at the show, which opened on Monday.
"Denying visas for the Russian delegation at Farnborough is a sign of unhealthy competition," Rogozin wrote in English on Twitter.
The Russian foreign ministry said in an angry statement on Monday that the arrival of most of its delegation "apparently has fallen through because they were not issued with British visas".
"We see such actions by the British side as clearly unfriendly... Moreover we reserve the right to mirror-image actions as is the custom in diplomacy," the ministry said, without giving further details.
Russia usually sends a sizeable contingent to the Farnborough International Airshow (FIA), a key biennial event in the aviation calendar, in order to increase its foreign sales.
Russia's Deputy Minister for Industry and Trade Yuri Slyusar, who is leading the delegation, told the ITAR-TASS news agency at the show that "347 people applied as delegates, 167 were given visas".
"We will have to somewhat cut back the programme for our visit here," he said, although he stopped short of confirming the delegation would pull out of the air show.
Sergei Kornev, the head Russian arms exports agency Rosoboronexport's delegation, told ITAR-TASS that "the lack of British visas for a significant number of the Russian delegation is an unhealthy sign of unfair competition and weakness".
The lack of visas to attend Farnborough "is not capable of having a negative influence on the global process" of Russia's arms sales, he added.