And now, we return to what we started with, the UK Ambassador Laurie Bristow's summon to the Russian MFA. As a response to London's exile of 23 Russian diplomats, 23 British diplomats will also have to leave Moscow. But Russia took it further this time. The British will have to close their Consulate in St. Petersburg, along with the British Council in Moscow. Maria Zakharova visited our headquarters earlier today. The British National Security Council is supposed to hold a meeting on Monday. Will they take new anti-Russian measures and what is Moscow prepared to do?
- Hello, Maria.
Maria Zakharova: Hello.
- It's a sad story. For me, a good respectful relationship between two nuclear nations has inherent worth. Of course, this degradation of the Russian-British relations won't do any good to our countries or the world.
- Do you know what UK journalists ask me? 'Why do you always emphasize that the UK is a nuclear nation?' So that they don't forget about their responsibility to the world. Every word is the issue of war and peace. It's about stability or destabilization.
- Let's hope we'll crawl out of it someday, but we are where we are, hence the questions. Why did Moscow decide to go with this response?
- Because the measures that were announced by the UK didn't end with the 23 diplomats. It was some sort of a mix of threats and scare tactics. Honestly, it's not even clear if they were scaring us, which I don't believe they were. It's become clear in the past few years that our people just don't scare easily. The question is, did they try to scare their own people this way? It's highly likely. The issue of closing the British Council is very old. It just finally got to its logical end, simply because we spent a long time urging, begging and calling on the British side to legalize this format, this organization, as a legitimate structure on the Russian territory.
- The same goes for Russian representation in London, right?
- They refused to take any measures. The key moment is that the Head of the British Council remains in Russia. I don't want to dictate or get involved in their hierarchy in any way, but he can act as a cultural adviser and continue developing all the current programs. This will not affect the said programs. This hasn't affected the head, either, so when it comes to the programs, they will remain within their old structure. As for the Consulate General in St. Petersburg, it has a lot of disparity.
- Let's elaborate. Russia has diplomatic missions in London and in Edinburgh in the UK, London has them in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Yekaterinburg, 2:3. Is there a risk that UK might respond to us closing down the Consulate in St. Petersburg by closing down Edinburgh for us?
- We've already stated that any attempts by the UK to take any additional measures will lead to harsher countermeasures. This has been clearly stated before. I also want to say that all these decisions were made with a clear head, and all possible countermeasures were considered.
- The British National Security Council is stated to work out new measures on Monday, we'll see what happens. When the UK ambassador Laurie Bristow had exited the MFA today, after he was handed the note, he said the following: "London gave Russia a chance to register the substance used in Salisbury with the OPCW, but it wasn't done." Is that true?
- Who did London give this chance?
- To Moscow, Russia.
- So far, no information has been presented to Moscow by London. Nothing.
- So, London hasn't inquired anything from Moscow?
- London hasn't involved any official mechanisms, or even unofficial, they could have gone another way.
- So, except for the Parliament's statement and several press publications, there has been no official note to the MFA about this chemical weapon?
- Absolutely nothing regarding the circumstances, the parameters -of the used substance. Nothing.
- The Novichok?
- You know, it's an absolute mystery, turns out that Novichok (Newcomer), posed as a Russian name, was developed by the West, not by us. Neither the Soviet Union nor Russia ever had a program for a substance with such name. There are no patents for this name, nothing with this name has ever been developed. This is made up by the Western countries. We need to investigate where it all came from. However, it's an open secret that all those Soviet scientists, after receiving their Russian citizenship, with all their scientific developments, had moved to the West in the 1990s. Nobody hides them. What's curious, as you may have noticed, is that the UK side, including the media, tries to act on Russian controversies. One assumed senator says something about the Novichok, an MP says something else, our representative to OPCW says a third thing.
- The Organization for the Prohibition of the Chemical Weapons.
- Listen, just give us a base, a foundation, give us the substance sample. Give it to us, and we'll all be saying the same thing.
- The UK claims they've given it to the OPCW, but Russian experts work there.
- Who did they give it to in the OPCW?
- Did the Russian experts study it there?
- In this situation, we'd like to work with the British side, and we'd like to figure out how they work with the OPCW without involving Russia. It's impossible. Also, another curious moment. When they say it's a substance within the Novichok program, how did they establish that? What did they compare the sample to? If they say this substance comes from Russia, they must have its original samples for comparison.
- That makes sense.
- It's not like comparing two similar jars, it's chemical formulas. So, without a sample from the country that you claim has produced it all talk is pointless. The lab, where everything was tested within those 10 days, is a lab that belongs to the UK defense establishment, who has worked with similar substances in the past, by the way.
- We're waiting for Monday. Thank you.
- Thank you.
