The foreign ministry in Kiev accused England of inventing the term “skinheads” and said it had also witnessed attacks on ethnic minorities, after the BBC claimed in a documentary that far-right gangs were rife in Polish and Ukrainian football.

Ukraine is already facing a potential boycott by top European Union leaders over the alleged mistreatment of the opposition leader and former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who is in jail on what critics say are trumped-up corruption charges.