The embassy said it had set up a "mirror" website
(www.rusemborguk.ru) to meet the increased interest of the public and media for
information before Cameron flies to Russia on Sunday.
"Prior to the visit of Prime Minister David Cameron to
Russia, the website of the Russian Embassy in London (www.rusemb.org.uk) was
brought down by a suspected DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack,"
the embassy said in a statement.
A DDoS attack is one in which hackers flood a website with
requests for information, making it unavailable to legitimate users.
Britain's relations with Russia have been soured by a
dispute over the 2006 murder in London of Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko,
a former Russian spy who died from poisoning by radioactive polonium-210.
Russia has refused to extradite Andrei Lugovoy, an ex-KGB
bodyguard Britain wants to prosecute for Litvinenko's murder. That sent ties
between the countries plunging to a post-Cold War low and led to tit-for-tat
diplomatic expulsions.
Relations have improved slightly since Cameron took power in
Britain last year at the head of a coalition government and since Dmitry
Medvedev became Russian president in 2008.
A Russian embassy spokesman said problems with the website
began on Friday night. The site was accessible for some time on Saturday but
was down again on Sunday, he said.
The website carries articles by Russian Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov and by Alexander Yakovenko, Russia's ambassador to London, on
Cameron's 24-hour visit.
