PRESS RELEASES AND NEWS
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Q: Could you comment on yesterday’s statement that the Prime Minister made in the House of Commons, namely that British authorities are “quite clear that Russia was responsible” for the Salisbury poisoning? Is this a hardening of the British position in comparison to her statement of 14 March, according to which it was “highly likely” that Russia was responsible?
Book of condolences will be open on 28 March from 11.00 to 17.00 at the Residence of the Ambassador of the Russian Federation at 13 Kensington Palace Gardens, London, W8 4QX.
On March 27, 2018 Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko held a briefing for the Ambassadors of foreign countries in the UK on the progress of the British authorities’ investigation into the attempted murder of two Russian citizens, Sergey and Yulia Skripal, on 4 March in Salisbury, as well as the violent death of another Russian national, Nikolay Glushkov, on 12 March in London.
Question: The British government is proud of having mobilized some Western partners to expel Russian diplomats in a show of support. How do you assess this coordinated Western policy?
Answer: For us in London, such hostile step was not unexpected. The secrecy of the Salisbury investigation and the refusal to provide the international community with any information supporting the accusations against Russia have demonstrated not only the weakness of the British public position, but also the urgent need to give it a veneer of international legitimacy. The only way to achieve that was to seek “solidarity” within the Western bloc. Solidarity has been expressed, but no facts have been produced – otherwise they would have been made public in Brussels.
Question: How would you comment on Boris Johnson’s fresh comparisons between Russia and the Nazi Germany?
Answer: Of course, we have noted Mr Johnson’s interview given to the Lincolnshire Life where he doesn’t only defend his comparison between the 2018 FIFA World Cup and the 1936 Olympics, but also compares Crimea’s reunification with Russia to Germany’s annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938.
Question: Has the Embassy received any further information on the investigation of the Salisbury poisoning from the British authorities?
Answer: So far, we have received a number of notifications from the Foreign Office, but unfortunately they do not shed further light either on what happened on 4 March, or on the course of the investigation, or on the medical condition of the Russian nationals involved.
On March 26, Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko met Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to the Russian Federation Rudiger von Fritsch at the latter’s request.
We express our strong protest in the wake of the decision taken by a number of EU and NATO member countries to expel Russian diplomats.
We consider this as an unfriendly step that is not consistent with the goals and interests of establishing the underlying reasons and searching for the perpetrators of the incident that occurred in the town of Salisbury on March 4. The provocative gesture of the so-called solidarity of these countries with London, which blindly followed the British authorities in the so-called “Skripal case” and which never got around to sort out the circumstances of the incident, is a continuation of the confrontational policy to escalate the situation.
On 21 March 2018 Third Secretary of the Embassy Vadim Retyunskiy presented the Ushakov medal to the Arctic Convoys veteran Mr Rullion Haldane RATTRAY.
Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko's reply to a media question during his press conference 22 March 2018
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