The Syrian Crisis

(Ambassador's letter to The Times of Malta, April 13, 2018)

Martin Scicluna’s article ‘Russian disinformation’ (April 11) made highly-entertaining reading, not least because of its striking resemblance to a very similar anti-Russian propaganda article (‘Leaked e-mails expose Russian dirty tricks’) that appeared in The Times of London on April 2. In fact, several paragraphs in the two texts are almost identical. Strange, is it not?

With regard to the contents of this ‘eye-opening analysis’, it should be noted that, without even trying to show a bit of impartiality or balance, the author again let his hysterical Russophobia run loose while shamelessly pushing the same old ‘Russia-is-responsible-for-all-the-evil-in-the-world’ narrative. This, to quote his own words, is “laughable and fools nobody”.

Firstly, the so-called “leaked Kremlin e-mails” fabrication was exposed a long time ago. By reproducing this falsehood the author is deliberately trying to shift the focus away from the fact that Ukraine’s authorities are openly sabotaging the implementation of the Minsk agreements, which remain in force and are binding from the point of view of international law.

Secondly, our position on the poisoning incident in Salisbury, UK was set forth in this newspaper on March 23. To this day, not a single piece of evidence on Russia’s alleged involvement has been presented. Just the other way around. With plans to pull down Sergei Skripal’s house and even restaurants he visited, his pets being starved to death and corpses burnt, the bench where the victims were found removed, London is busy destroying evidence. In the meantime, we are supposed to take the UK’s word for it, as if the invasion of Iraq never took place and Tony Blair never apologised for misleading the UK public on the issue of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

Finally, another disinformation campaign is on as the West is trying to accuse the Syrian government of using chemical weapons against its own people. Employees of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and representatives of relevant Russian services that deal with radiological security visited the suspected incident site in Douma and did not find any traces of chemical substances there. Russia has invited OPCW experts to visit Syria and independently verify this.

We can no longer blindly believe results produced by remote investigations and vague reports filled with phrases like “highly likely” and “highly possible”. So who is really spreading disinformation here?

Vladimir Malygin

Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Malta

San Gwann