UK relations with Russia are at an all-time low says senior Moscow diplomat
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Britain’s relationship with Russia is at an all-time low, Moscow’s most senior diplomat in the UK said yesterday.
Alexander Yakovenko said the UK’s actions towards Russia had been “provocative” and “outright ridiculous.”
The Russian ambassador said the Government was guilty of “raising tensions in Europe” by deploying 800 troops for the Nato mission to Estonia.
“We deplore that deployment for it raises tensions in Europe along the border between Nato and Russia.
“Russia doesn’t pose any threat to Estonia nor any other Nato member-state. That’s why all the talk of territorial defence sounds provocative, and with the changing nature of war, outright ridiculous,” he said.
His comments came after Theresa May condemned Vladimir Putin for blocking a United Nations Security Council resolution ordering an inquiry into the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons attack that slaughtered at least 80 people.
(Photo: PA)
Asked if this is the worst that relations between the UK and Russia have ever been, he said: ‘Yes, it is.’
He repeated the Moscow line that the chemical weapons attack may have been “framed” by terrorists.
“Now the same stagecraft with the same purpose in mind. It is suspicious that the West wouldn’t even discuss the issue of chemical weapons use by opposition terrorists,” he told the Daily Mail.
(Photo: PA)
The ambassador also dismissed the calls from Britain and America for Russia to end its support for Bashar al Assad or find itself on the “wrong side of history.”
He said Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s decision to cancel a trip to Moscow after the chemical weapons attack was “unfortunate.”
It was another “indication that there is no bilateral relationship of substance between our two nations beyond mere diplomatic ones,” he said.