Interfax: Russia’s Lavrov “flattered” by election meddling claims

(Interfax – July 13, 2017)

Moscow denies that it is meddling in German elections, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said.

“We are, of course, flattered that we are being portrayed as a country which decides the fate of the world, both in the US and Germany,” he said, responding to a question about alleged Russian interference in German elections.

“If this were so, the attitude towards Moscow in all of our former [Soviet] republics around us would be quite different from what it is now, there would have been no Ukrainian crisis, no problems with the Dniester settlement [in Moldova]. Russia would have planted its people wherever it wanted, if we are so powerful,” the Russian minister said in a lecture at the Koerber Foundation.

According to Lavrov, no evidence has ever been presented of Russia’s interference in the [presidential] election in the US.

“I think this is a very destructive approach, such savouring of leaks, fakes. If you take America, during the eight months of investigations that are under way there, not a single fact has been presented. Only that someone from the new president’s team once met someone, either a journalist, a businessman, or a lawyer. I cannot imagine that serious, grown-up people are engaged in this with such bitterness,” he said.

“My answer had to be a little longer than the simple word ‘no’,” the minister explained, answering the question about Russia’s interference in German elections.