Embassy Press Officer’s reply to a media question concerning placing Sergey and Yulia Skripal on a missing person list
Question: How would you comment on the media reports suggesting that Sergey Skripal’s mother has officially requested Russian law enforcement agencies to record her son and granddaughter as missing and initiate a missing person investigation? According to the British side, the UK agencies have not received any official notice from the Russian authorities with regard to placing the Skripals on a missing person list.
Answer: We fully understand the natural concern of Elena Skripal with what has happened to her relatives. The situation is exacerbated by a lack of access to the Russian citizens in violation of international law and the bilateral 1965 Consular Convention. In this case we are unable to officially state that Sergey and Yulia are still alive. We are disturbed by the recent media leaks concerning the worsening health of Sergey Skripal, whose track has been lost since the incident on 4 March 2018. As for Yulia, she was seen only once in May 2018 in a video address which was obviously pre-written by the British secret services. All this indicates that both our nationals are being isolated.
We would like to remind that since the very beginning the competent Russian authorities have turned to the British side via official channels, requesting legal assistance and proposing to establish joint investigation on the Salisbury incident. However, ignoring the norms of international law, the British authorities have denied both the request and the proposal. The Embassy has sent dozens of Notes Verbales and letters to the FCO, the Home Office and the police which were also left unanswered.
Taking into account all the facts, concern of Sergei and Yulia's family as well as their appeal to the Russian law enforcement agencies seems to be fully justified.
Question: How would you comment on UK’s decision not to issue a visa to the Russian delegate who intended to participate in the Global Conference on Media Freedom? Answer: It is well-known that visas for official travel have become one of the problems of the current Russia-UK relations. But even in these conditions not issuing a visa to a representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry travelling to participate in the conference looks really weird. The UK side itself invited the Russian side to participate in the conference, accredited the Russian delegate, but then refused to issue him a visa, thus sabotaging the visit.
Question: What could you say about the refusal of the British authorities to accredit the Russian news agencies RT and Sputnik at the Global Conference for Media Freedom?
Maria Zakharova: One gets the impression that having announced an event with a flashy title, London decided to show the whole world an example of manipulating public opinion. Judge for yourself. One of the main declared goals of this forum is to unite diplomatic efforts to protect media freedom and discuss violations of the rights of media workers. So what do we have in reality?
We condemn the seizure of the super tanker sailing under the Panama flag on July 4, conducted by the Gibraltar authorities aided by Great Britain’s Royal Marine Commando unit. We view the seizure of the vessel and its cargo as a deliberate action aimed at aggravating the situation around Iran and Syria. Laudatory comments by top US and British officials immediately after the operation confirm this conclusion and prove that the action had been long in the making with the involvement of respective services and agencies of several countries.
As we have learned, British organisers of the Global Conference for Media Freedom, due to take place in London on 10-11 July, have refused to accredit journalists from the RT channel. The reason given was that the quota of journalists invited to the Conference had already been reached – and that despite the fact that RT had sent the request several weeks ago and has long been trying, unsuccessfully, to get a meaningful reply.
16 months have passed since the mysterious incident in Salisbury. The British side continuously ignores multiple appeals by Russia to clear up the circumstances surrounding the incident, provide transparency of the investigation, allow access to the affected Russian citizens and launch substantive cooperation to establish, what and how happened in Salisbury in reality. As before, more than 80 Notes Verbales sent to the Foreign Office and the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation for legal assistance over Russia’s own criminal case have been left unanswered. At the same time the British authorities continue to take an aggressive stance towards Russia, while claiming to have irrefutable evidence that our country was behind the incident. However, the British side does not bother to present the “evidence” either to Russia, or to their own allies, or to the public.
On 3 July Foreign and Commonwealth Office announced that during general debate in the UN Human Rights Council the British delegation called on Russia “to grant international human rights monitors access to illegally annexed Crimea”. Leaving aside the issue of “illegal annexation” (Russia’s stance on this subject is well-known), we would like to stress that the Republic of Crimea is open for visits of all international delegations and any foreign guests in general, on equal terms with all the other regions of our country. The FCO statement is therefore confusing. We consider it as yet another example of abuse of human rights issues by our British colleagues.
Question: How would you comment on the BBC’s publication of 28 June which contains new “information” on the supposed “coordinator” of the Salisbury poisoning? Answer: As previously, this publication is based on reports from the untrustworthy “investigative” group Bellingcat and information provided by anonymous sources to the journalist Mark Urban, which are impossible to verify. This, predictably, raises a number of questions.
Question: What was President Putin’s answer to Mrs May’s question on the Skripal case? He outlined his position in the «Financial Times» interview but what did he say directly to Mrs May? Was she satisfied? Answer: It’s hard to say whether she was. Mrs May had indeed raised the Skripals incident in a rather tough manner, while the Russian President gave a detailed explanation on everything worth explaining. We all know that the British side has so far provided no evidence to support its accusations on the case. Neither to us, nor to their European allies, nor to North American ones. Otherwise, the evidence would have already been somehow made public.
From 1 July 2019, electronic visas are introduced for visiting the Kaliningrad Region of Russia. E-visas may be obtained online at http://electronic-visa.kdmid.ru/klgd_home.html. Nationals of 53 states are eligible for an e-visa. These include all EU member states, except the United Kingdom.
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