BBC News has opened a new bureau in Moscow, with the corporation hailing it as the "largest international broadcast operation in Russia."

The new bureau, which in addition to the above attribute is also the BBC's "largest news operation in the world, outside of the UK," according to a press release out today, brings together staff from different divisions within the BBC News operation. Nearly a hundred staff from BBC Newsgathering and BBC Monitoring along with the BBC World Service's Russian, Central Asian and Caucasian services will be based at the new bureau.

Seven radio studios, one TV studio and several indoor and outdoor outside broadcast points are included in the bureau. Optical fibre links will connect it direct to Television Centre in London, with up to four studios being able to broadcast to the UK simultaneously.