EMBASSY INFORMS
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. Following the 2014 state coup, which the United States and several other countries openly supported, Ukraine has been falling ever deeper into political chaos, corruption, lawlessness and aggressive nationalism.
Over the past five years, Ukraine has been engulfed in violence and crimes committed on political and ideological grounds. Most of these crimes were not followed by appropriate legal action. The case of the snipers who shot people on Maidan has not been objectively investigated, and the tragedy in Odessa in May 2014 has not been solved.
Contrary to their declarations of commitment to democracy and human rights and freedoms, the Ukrainian authorities are actually hunting down those whose views differ from the official position. Many independent Ukrainian media outlets and journalists, including editor-in-chief of RIA Novosti Ukraine Kirill Vyshinsky, have been victimised and persecuted. - Full name: Treaty Between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States of America on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles.
- Signed in Washington on 8 December 1987 by General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan. Entered into force on 1 June 1988.
- Required destruction of ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of between 500 and 5500 kilometers, their launchers and associated support structures and support equipment, thus promoting stability and predictability, as well as playing a major role in reformatting the geopolitical landscape in Europe and interstate relations between the key players in this region.
- Contained detailed rules on the procedure of missiles elimination and inspections. First of all, Wolfgang (Ischinger), thank you for your presentation and your kind words. There is yet another reason why I address [this conference] more often than anyone else: this is because you have kept your post for so long.
Today, the situation on the European continent and generally in the Euro-Atlantic region is, certainly, extremely tense. There appear ever more new rifts and the old ones grow deeper. I think that under these circumstances, it is relevant and even timely to turn to the European Home idea, no matter how strange this may sound in the current situation.
Many great modern day politicians realised the need for pooling the potentials of absolutely all European states. Let me mention Charles de Gaulle, who put forward the concept of Greater Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals, a peaceful Europe without divides or bloc confrontations, which, in his opinion, made Europe “artificial and barren.” Chancellor Helmut Kohl and President Francois Mitterrand also spoke about the importance of the broadest possible partnership with Russia in the name of stability and security. Question: How would you comment on the reports by the British media that on Sunday morning someone hoisted a Russian flag on the scaffolding around the Salisbury Cathedral? Answer: We saw these reports, but we do not have any official information on them. If the reports of hoisting a Russian flag are true, then it all looks to us like a well-staged provocation. Question: The Guardian has published an interview with the parents of the British citizen Dawn Sturgess, who died in July last year allegedly from “Novichok” poisoning. They put the blame for the non-transparent investigation on the UK government. How would you comment on their statements? Answer: We have studied carefully the interview and fully agree with Dawn Sturgess's family. Numerous questions regarding the tragedy in Amesbury remain unanswered, the British authorities continue to conceal the circumstances of that incident. We fully understand the fair indignation Dawn Sturgess's relatives feel. Question: How would you comment on the recent statements by the British officials calling upon their European partners to impose new sanctions against Russia over the incident in the Kerch Strait last year?
Answer: We have not been surprised with such an active UK’s approach. Those statements have clearly shown the anti-Russian essence of the current Conservative government’s policy. British officials are doing their utmost to avoid conducting a normal intergovernmental dialogue with Russia, while using only the language of ultimatums and sanctions. Mr. President,
Above all, let me thank today’s briefers: Mr. M.Jenča, Mm. U.Müller, Mr. E.Apakan and Mr. M.Sajdik.
We have initiated this meeting in order to discuss the course of implementation of “Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements” – the most important document for the settlement of Ukraine’s internal crisis. It was signed 4 years ago, on 12 February 2015 by the representatives of OSCE, Ukraine, Russia, DPR and LPR. Thank you, Mr. President,
Above all, we would like to thank our colleagues from Equatorial Guinea for their principal position and for inclusion of a meeting on Kosovo in the Council’s agenda for February in order to discuss the situation in the Province and the report by Secretary-General of 31 January on the implementation of UNSC resolution 1244.
We welcome the participation of Mr. Ivica Dačić, First Deputy Prime-Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia. Distinguished Minister, we share the profound concerns about the situation in Kosovo that you talked about. Question: How would you comment on the UK position on Kosovo at the UN Security Council (UN SC)? Answer: The developments in the province are still worrying. As we have stressed earlier, Pristina’s decision to transform the Kosovo Security Force into full-fledged “armed forces” is a flagrant violation of the UN SC Resolution 1244 that only allows for the deployment of internationally controlled multinational contingents in the province. What is more, it goes against Kosovo’s own “constitution”. On 10 February Russian diplomats mark their professional day – Diplomats’ Day, which was established by a Presidential Decree in 2002 to commemorate the founding of the Russian Diplomatic Service in 1549. The date itself is closely associated with the history of Russia’s first foreign affairs agency – the Ambassadorial Department (or “Posolsky Prikaz” in Russian). On 10 February 1549 the Ambassadorial Department, established by Czar Ivan IV, was first mentioned in official chronicles. Question: How would you comment on the statement made by FCO Minister of State Mark Field in the House of Commons regarding the threat posed by the Russian 9M729 cruise missile?
Answer: We have taken note Mr Field’s comment with regard to the INF Treaty calling for Russia to destroy the 9M729 cruise missiles. Such statements by the UK officials are designed to maintain the US-initiated campaign to accuse Russia of violating the INF Treaty, primarily with the aim to justify Washington’s long-planned decision to withdraw from the Treaty. UK Government is perfectly aware that the US has refused to provide any objective data supporting their conclusion that the Russian 9М729 cruise missile has a range prohibited by the INF Treaty.
Russia has repeatedly confirmed that its missile programs fully comply with its obligations under the INF Treaty. This also applies to the 9M729 cruise missile, on which Russia provides maximum transparency. During the talks in Geneva on 15 January the Russian side invited US military experts to inspect the missile in order to address any existing concerns. However, this unprecedented step was rejected out of hand, confirming that Washington was simply not interested in maintaining the INF Treaty. Question: How would you comment on the statement by the Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt recognising National Assembly President, Juan Guaido, as the interim President of Venezuela? Answer: We have repeatedly stated that attempts to change the leadership of Venezuela from outside and by unconstitutional means flagrantly violate the principle of non-interference in internal affairs, which is one of the cornerstones of international law and the UN Charter. We have read the NATO Council statement of February 1, 2019 and noted that it was released much earlier than we received a formal notification from the United States about suspending its participation in the 1987 Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles and beginning the exit procedure.
Such haste is no surprise for Russia. This is yet another demonstration of the fact that NATO has fully blended with Washington’s line aimed at the final scrapping of the arms control system painstakingly built over many years.
The collapse of the INF Treaty will have grave and far-reaching consequences for the entire European security architecture NATO is allegedly deeply concerned about – and naturally, for the US allies in Europe. On February 2, the US Department of State issued a press statement officially notifying the Russian Federation that the United States had suspended its obligations under the 1987 Soviet-US Treaty on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles (INF Treaty) and had launched the procedure of withdrawing from it. At the same time, the Americans announced that they no longer consider themselves to be bound by the treaty obligations, which means that they can openly design, produce and deploy the weapon systems prohibited under the treaty.
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