Russia: Like “Talking to a Mute or a Deaf Person”

By TruePublica: Polina Ivanove from the FT reports that Russia’s foreign minister has described a two-hour meeting in Moscow with his British counterpart as “disappointing” and “a dialogue of a mute person with a deaf person”, as European countries engage in a diplomatic push to prevent another Russian attack on Ukraine’s territory.

Speaking to the press on Thursday, Sergei Lavrov said Liz Truss’s delegation had come “unprepared”, as he reiterated that the Russian military build-up around Ukraine posed no threat and that Moscow’s security demands in Europe had been ignored.

Meanwhile, Truss demanded Russia withdraw the more than 100,000 troops massed on the border with Ukraine. Truss’s visit is the first by a UK foreign secretary to Russia in more than four years.

“I am disappointed that our conversation was the dialogue of a mute person with a deaf person,” Lavrov said. “We appear to listen to each other, but we do not hear each other.” He characterised the closed-door talks as combative and ineffectual and Russian-British relations as being “at their lowest point for many, many years”.

The tone of the comments contrasted sharply with talks held on Monday in Moscow between presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Emmanuel Macron of France that opened with an amicable exchange and lasted more than five hours.

The British government, now filled with acolytes from a political gene pool that has reached rock bottom, sends out its best in the form of Liz Truss in an attempt to diffuse the potential for Europe to be dragged into a war with Russia.

Meanwhile, special correspondent in Moscow Alena Chernenko reports that Lavrov said “Do you recognise sovereignty over Rostov and Veronezh oblasts?” Truss said “never” without realising it is part of western Russia and has been since 1937. A British ambassador had to intervene. This gaffe is a little bit like asking the most senior Chinese foreign affairs official if they recognise the Devon as a part of British sovereignty and being told “never.”

Sending adolescents in place of grown-ups on matters of national security at a time when Russia is testing Western resolve is a disaster.

However, a country that is on “mute” is one that has exerted huge effort and succeeded in creating division and sowing uncertainty about the British state’s legitimacy – is Putin’s Russia.

David Cameron’s government knew of claims that the Russian security services had interfered in the Scottish referendum but did nothing to safeguard the one that would cause do much damage – the EU referendum. Theresa May’s government failed to investigate it. And the governments of John Major, Tony Blair, David Cameron and Theresa May all provided a warm and willing home for figures close to Vladimir Putin to launder their money and wash their reputations.

Boris Johnson then ramped up that cancer within our democracy by accepting millions in donations and even rewarded the son of a Kremlin KGB agent a place in the House of Lords where he could vote down any attempt to stop the foreign entry of suspect Russians or their ill-gotten gains.

In the meantime, Liz Truss took time out to ensure that a photo-op was not missed, donned a big furry hat in the backdrop of the Moscow skyline and displayed the facial expression of the animal that it came from just before it was stunned and put down before being skinned.

 

 

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