Mumbai: Russia's strained relations with Britain over the Litvinenko affair deteriorated further with Moscow's FM radio station, Bolshoye Radio, taking BBC Russian programmes off the air from the afternoon on 17 August.

Bolshoye Radio said BBC World Service is being removed from FM radio in Russia at the request of the Russian authorities.

Russian licensing authorities have ordered the station to remove BBC programming by 5pm Moscow time on 17 August or risk being taken off air, it said.

BBC Russian Service broadcasts were jammed by the Soviet Union for being "foreign propaganda."

The authorities claim the station's licence requires all programming to be produced by Bolshoye Radio itself. BBC, however, said the station is allowed to broadcast foreign produced content.

BBC said the detailed concept documents - the basis on which the licence was awarded in February 2006 - clearly state that only "60 per cent of the station's total output will be original material produced by Bolshoye Radio".

According to the same concept documents, BBC said, the station could also have up to 18 per cent foreign produced content.

Moscow station Bolshoye Radio has been broadcasting programmes from the BBC Russian Service since May and is BBC Russian Service's last FM distribution partner station in Russia.

Two other FM partner stations have ceased to take BBC programmes over the last nine months.

The owners of Bolshoye Radio, financial group Finam, have told representatives of the BBC Russian Service that they are required to remove BBC programming at the request of Russian licensing authorities, or risk the station being taken off-air.

Igor Ermachenkov, a spokesman for Finam, however, said the decision was taken without outside interference. "It is no secret that the BBC was established as a broadcaster for foreign propaganda," he said.

The BBC intends to appeal to Russia's Federal Service for the Supervision of Mass Media, Communication and Protection of Cultural Heritage. It will ask for the decision to be reviewed and for the original concept of the station to be respected.

The BBC and Voice of Russia have been on Bolshoye Radio since May this year. The station, which was sold in July to financial investment company Finam, was currently at a test signal stage ahead of an official launch planned for the autumn.

Bolshoye Radio's test signal included the broadcasts of BBC programming in Russian. The BBC programmes included Utro na BBC, London View, BBSeva (hosted by Seva Novgordosev) and a new interactive programme Vam Slovo. A new current affairs programme is currently being piloted, for launch in September.

The BBC has had previous problems with FM broadcasting in Russia. At the end of 2006, Moscow station Radio Arsenal ceased taking BBC programming, and in early 2006 the St Petersburg station Radio Leningrad also stopped taking BBC programmes. Radio Leningrad informed the BBC that it had been required to stop broadcasting BBC programmes by local licensing authorities.

BBC Russian programmes continue to be audio streamed online at bbcrussian.com.

The move is seen as the latest punitive action by Moscow in the bitter row that broke out between Britain and Russia over the murder in November of Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB officer who was poisoned in London with the radioactive isotope polonium-210.