Lavrov says, Moscow has reasons to believe Navalny controversy was facade

F.P Report

MOSCOW: Russian Foreign Minister on Tuesday has said that there are “reasons to believe that Navalny incident is a sham”.

During a joint press conference with his Swedish counterpart Ann Linde, Russian Foreign Minister stated that, Moscow has reasons to believe that the Alexey Navalny incident was a sham.

He added that, “As for the Navalny case, no information has been provided to us to prove accusations against the Russian authorities,” Lavrov pointed out.

Lavrov commented that, “If you make accusations against someone, then prove their guilt. And if you say: ‘I won’t tell you anything because it’s a secret,’ we have reasons to believe that it’s a sham,” he added.

Referring to Swedish Military laboratory, Lavrov added that, “Today, I once again reminded the Swedish side that since a Swedish military laboratory conducted an analysis and the conclusions of German experts were publicly confirmed, we expect our Swedish colleagues to show transparency and honesty in this case.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted that, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) should pay particular attention to the issue of access to information in light of attempts by tech giants to censor opinions that do not suit their administrations.

While mentioning the right to access information, Lavrov added that, “Against the backdrop of censoring undesirable opinions by global IT companies, special attention must be paid to ensuring the right to access information.”

On January 27, Russia’s Federation Council (upper house of parliament) and the Russian Foreign Ministry made statements about the need for international agencies to develop rules regulating the work of social media and large tech companies.

Russian Foreign Ministry highlighted that “restrictive actions by the administrations of US social networks in relation to the content posted on them dealt a blow to the democratic system of values and the international information architecture.”