Reply by the Embassy’s spokesperson to a media question regarding the Guardian piece on Julian Assange
Question: How would you comment on today’s Guardian article claiming that “Russian diplomats held secret talks to assess whether they could help Julian Assange flee the UK”?
Answer: This publication has nothing to do with the reality. The Embassy has never engaged either with Ecuadorian colleagues, or with anyone else, in discussions on any kind of Russia’s participation in ending Mr Assange’s stay within the diplomatic mission of Ecuador. As regards the idea that “the Kremlin was willing to offer support” to a secret plan by “allowing Assange to travel to Russia”, we are puzzled by the sensational attitude of the authors. Russia is always happy to welcome international guests if they arrive in a lawful manner and with good intentions.
As recently as 18 September, the Culture Secretary, Jeremy Wright, speaking at the Royal Television Society, called for increased efforts to combat media and online disinformation. Today’s Guardian piece is a brilliant example of the kind of journalism that the British reader should be protected from.
By the way, contrary to British media standards, the authors had not asked us for a comment when preparing their article. Let us hope that the Guardian will correct the omission by publishing this reply.
On 20 February, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Dominic Raab made an official statement, according to which “with the highest level of probability, the GRU carried out large-scale, disruptive cyber-attacks against a range of Georgian web hosting providers and resulted in websites being defaced, including sites belonging to the Georgian Government, courts, NGOs, media and businesses, and also interrupted the service of several national broadcasters”. It is emphasized that “the UK, Georgia and the international partners have exposed” this fact.
On 15 February 2020 the Embassy hosted a conference on the situation with the Russian language in UK that brought together heads of Russian studies at British schools in London, Hampton, Oxford and Ware. The event was co-organised together with the Russian language teachers’ society UK.
Question: How would you comment on the statement mentioning Russia’s “violations” made by the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the FCO H.Wheeler on February 6 at the debate in the House of Commons on persecution of Christians? Answer: This statement is ill-advised and could not be further from the truth. Christians make up the majority of Russian believers. Hundreds of new churches are being built. The Russian Orthodox Church is actively engaging in public discussions on socially significant issues. Most favourable conditions have been created for exercising the freedom of belief for other Christian denominations as well as non-Christians.
Ladies and gentlemen, The visit of the Russian Foreign Minister and his delegation to Mexico is coming to an end. I believe the visit was very fruitful. We held highly constructive and useful talks with my Mexican counterpart, Mr Marcelo Luis Ebrard Casaubón. As you may know, the ties between our two nations have a long history. They were officially established 130 years ago: next December will see their anniversary and we have arranged with our Mexican colleagues today to celebrate this memorial date fittingly.
Ladies and gentlemen, Today, in addition to the launch ceremony for the TurkStream gas pipeline that you witnessed, President of Russia Vladimir Putin and President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan held intensive bilateral talks. They adopted a joint statement following the talks. I would like to highlight several points of this document.
On January 4, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had a telephone conversation with Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mohammad Javad Zarif, at the latter’s initiative.
We were concerned to learn of the death of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Commander Major General Qasem Soleimani in a US military strike on Baghdad airport.
Tweet Follow @russianembassy