Ambassador Andrei Kelin holds online meeting with members of Russia APPG
On 5 October 2020 Russian Ambassador to the UK Andrei Kelin held an online meeting with members of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Russia. Members of both the House of Lords and the House of Commons, representing all major political parties of the country, took part in the conversation.
Views were exchanged on a wide range of issues, including bilateral relations between Russia and the UK, the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the economic life of the two countries, pressing issues on international agenda, not least the situation in Belarus and Nagorno-Karabakh.
Andrei Kelin noted, that since the previous meeting with parliamentarians in early March, political relations between the two countries hadn’t improved. On the contrary, they had seen a series of new challenges. He appealed to those at the UK Parliament who understand the importance of cooperating with Russia in order to ensure security and prosperity in Europe, to take a more pro-active position.
Once again the Ambassador emphasised that Russia is open to equal and respectful dialogue, including in the parliamentary dimension. Participants agreed to organise similar meetings on a regular basis.
The suggestion that the Russian State may conduct any kind of propaganda against the AstraZeneca vaccine is itself an example of disinformation. It is obviously aimed at discrediting Russia’s efforts in combating the pandemic, including the good cooperation we have established with the UK in this field.
The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group (Igor Popov of the Russian Federation, Stéphane Visconti of France, and Andrew Schofer of the United States of America) released the following statement today: The Co-Chairs strongly condemn the continued violence in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone as well as against targets in the territory of Armenia and Azerbaijan away from the Line of Contact, and express our alarm at reports of increasing civilian casualties. Targeting or threatening civilians is never acceptable under any circumstances. The Co-Chairs call on the sides to observe fully their international obligations to protect civilian populations.
We noted the EU’s October 2 decision to adopt new restrictive measures as regards Belarus. A comment declaring response measures has already been released by Belarusian officials. We see that instead of displaying restraint, which is so vital for stabilisation in Belarus, the European Union has once again resorted to the instrument of sanctions. This approach is unilateral and illegal. It undermines the prerogatives of the UN Security Council and leads to the further erosion of international law.
There is growing concern regarding the professional credentials of Permanent Representative of the United States to the Conference on Disarmament Robert Wood. On October 1, 2020, during a briefing hosted by the Foreign Press Association at the United Nations Office in Geneva he said that he did not know what Russia’s initiatives to prevent an arms race in outer space were about. As a reminder, for 40 years Russia (and earlier the USSR) has consistently advocated the drafting of a multilateral legally binding instrument that would prohibit the deployment of weapons of any kind, as well as the use or threat of force in outer space.
On 26 September 2020 Third Secretary of the Embassy Vadim Retyunskiy presented the Ushakov medal to the Arctic Convoys veteran Mr William Geoffrey ROBINSON who was awarded this military honour by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation for his personal courage and bravery displayed in WWII.
The Russian Federation has been acting in the most transparent manner in the situation around Mr. Alexey Navalny from the very beginning. At the request of relatives, he was promptly granted permission to travel to Germany for medical treatment, which he did without hindrance, once the doctors at the Omsk hospital managed to stabilize his condition. Moreover, Russian doctors passed on to their German colleagues the data they had collected on the patient's health condition and were ready to continue to work together for the sake of his speedy recovery.
One of today’s major strategic challenges is the risk of a large-scale confrontation in the digital field. A special responsibility for its prevention lies on the key players in the field of ensuring international information security (IIS). In this regard, we would like to once again address the US with a suggestion to agree on a comprehensive program of practical measures to reboot our relations in the field of security in the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs).
On 10 September 2020, Russian Ambassador Andrei Kelin hosted the former President of WorldSkills International Mr Simon Bartley at his residence to present him with a Certificate of Commendation from the Government of the Russian Federation awarded for his outstanding work in promoting the WorldSkills Russia movement.
On 7 September 2020, Russian Ambassador Andrei Kelin and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office Director General Thomas Drew discussed the situation regarding the hospitalisation of Alexei Navalny. The British side has called for an investigation of the case. The Ambassador stressed that voicing unsubstantiated accusations and politicising an essentially medical and legal matter was unacceptable.
The report was prepared before last year’s general election, but its publication was long delayed by the ruling Conservatives, and opponents of Boris Johnson accused him of doing it specifically to downplay the Russian threat and prevent his party from losing credibility. Now, however, the report, written in part by well-known retired MI-5 employee Christopher Style (creator of the file on Trump’s “Russian contacts”), has been published. The British press has been disappointed: there is no proof of Russian interference in the Brexit referendum (although they cannot understand how the British voted to leave the EU when most of the political elite, almost all of the press and the City were against it), although there are rumours of attempts to influence the Scottish independence referendum. This, however, is London’s point of view; from Moscow’s perspective, the report is sensational, because its authors’ conclusions are the best evidence that the British powers-that-be are prepared to work in the Kremlin’s interests. Style and Browder (another co-author of the report) do not in fact understand this, but this is the skill of the so-called KGB heirs’ game. But let’s start at the beginning.
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