Ms Truss has insisted she was “not mute” and put the UK’s position across during a meeting with her Russian counterpart
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said UK diplomats came “unprepared” to Moscow and described talks with Foreign Secretary Liz Truss as like “speaking to a deaf person who listens but cannot hear.”
Mr Lavrov made the comments immediately after talks between the two leaders in which Ms Truss warned any Russian invasion of Ukraine would have “massive consequences”.
“The reality is we cannot ignore the build-up of over 100,000 troops on the Ukrainian border and the attempts to undermine Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Ms Truss told the Russian foreign minister.
“Fundamentally, a war in Ukraine would be disastrous for the Russian and Ukrainian people, and for European security. And, together, Nato has made it clear that any incursion into Ukraine would have massive consequences and carry severe costs.”
“If these principles are respected, I believe that, in today’s talks, we can make progress to strengthen security for all,” she told Mr Lavrov.
However Mr Lavrov said UK diplomats came “unprepared” to the meeting and he told Ms Truss Russia is strengthening ties with China. He described the talks as like “speaking to a deaf person who listens but does not hear.”
Ms Truss insisted she put forward the UK position saying: “I certainly wasn’t mute in our discussions earlier, I put forward the UK’s point of view on the current situation as well as seeking to deter Russia from an invasion of Ukraine.”
She said Mr Lavrov told her Russia had no plans to invade Ukraine, but insisted if Russia was serious about diplomacy it needed to move troops away from the border.
The meeting between the two leaders is the first talks between the top diplomats in more than four years after Russia-UK ties were badly strained by the poisoning of Russian spy, Sergei Skripal in England in March 2018.
Mr Lavrov insisted Russia would not be lectured, saying: “ideological approaches, ultimatums and moralising is a road to nowhere.”
The Guardian’s Moscow correspondent, Andrew Roth, said he interpreted Mr Lavrov’s comments to mean that the two leaders were talking past each other.
“I’m honestly disappointed that our conversation turned out like the mute with the deaf. We appear to be listening but we’re not hearing anything,” he tweeted.
It’s not the first time Ms Truss has been the target of Russian ire. Last week she was mocked by Russia’s foreign ministry after saying the UK would send aid to our “Baltic allies across the Black Sea”.
“Mrs Truss, your knowledge of history is nothing compared to your knowledge of geography,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, wrote in a blog post. “If anyone needs saving from anything, it’s the world, from the stupidity and ignorance of British politicians.”
The meeting comes as Prime Minister, Boris Johnson met with Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels, and is due to visit Poland later today.
When this sack of shit starts to insult foreign diplomats, you know you have done a good job, and pissed him off. Why anyone wants to talk to this lying sack of shit is beyond me, what are they hoping to gain?
Lavrov said, “ideological approaches, ultimatums and moralising is a road to nowhere.”
Isn’t that exactly what he gave the West in relation to security guarantees and orders for NATO?
Those three things is exactly what Lavrov and the rodent have been doing. Russia is maintaining the traditions of the soviet union of doing that.
I think all politicians in both Russia and the West, including the second shittiest government Ukraine ever had, failed miserably. They all keep rolling over Ukraine, pulling at all ends, escalating wherever they can, preventing any substantial progress. No concessions from either side, corruption and oligarchy continue, the ‘ceasefire’ continues, the threats and drivel continue, yet we are getting nowhere. The half-assed ‘support’ for Ukraine by the West does not make it better. Finally it needs to be seen which side has the worse geographical knowledge…
Kremln thugs are only hospitable to grovellers like Macron. They just aren’t used to being confronted.
Ukraine can solve this crisis. But they need the only friend with sufficient power to force a change in putler’s calculus; the US, to adopt a far more robust approach.
Britain will do what it can to help. Sadly, under Mrs Thatcher, we still had the third largest navy in the world and a large, powerful army and Air Force. Today that is no longer the case. We need to step up to 6% of GDP for the armed forces. Ironically we still spend more than Russia on our armed forces, but Russia of course buys in rubles off its own suppliers.