The BBC World Service has been informed by the owners of the Moscow FM radio station Bolshoye Radio that BBC programming in Russian will no longer be broadcast on the station.

This was the BBC Russian Service's last FM distribution partner station in Russia. It follows two other FM partner stations ceasing to take BBC programmes over the last nine months.

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. There are concerns that such moves are motivated by relations between the two countries having deteriorated since the death of former Russian state security agent Alexander Litvinenko.

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

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.

According to official warnings received by Finam from the regulatory body, the licence requires that all programming must be produced by Bolshoye Radio itself, but the BBC says the original concept was that the station broadcast 18% foreign produced content.

Richard Sambrook, director of BBC Global News, said: "We are extremely disappointed that listeners to Bolshoye Radio in Moscow will be unable to listen to our impartial and independent news and information programming in the high quality audibility of FM. The BBC has invested a great deal of energy and resources into developing high quality programming for the station."

He continued: "The BBC entered into the relationship with Bolshoye Radio in good faith, and the licence was won in a competitive tender in February 2006. We cannot understand how the licence is now interpreted in a way that does not reflect the original and thorough concept documents."

BBC Russian programmes continue to be audio streamed online at bbcrussian.com and through New Day channel on NTV+ satellite, as well as Hotbird 2 satellite. The BBC's shortwave broadcasts in Russian remain unaffected.