British Foreign Secretary Elizabeth Truss at a press conference following talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. File photoMOSCOW, 15 Feb. The arrogance and ignorance of British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss at a meeting with colleague Sergei Lavrov led to a further deterioration in relations with Russia, columnist Mary Dejevsky wrote in an article for the Spiked online magazine. In her opinion, Truss's visit to the Russian capital was a «shame» for British diplomacy , as she demonstrated poor preparation for the negotiations.
"Lise Truss stayed on a visit to Moscow for just over a day, but managed to confirm all the prejudices of Russia about British diplomacy: arrogance, coldness, adherence to hypocritical moralizing about " values". She added something else to this list — ignorance", says Dejevsky.
The author of the publication mentioned an incident when Truss, during a conversation with Lavrov, refused to recognize Russia's sovereignty over the Voronezh and Rostov regions.British Foreign Minister caught breaking etiquette in front of Lavrov» Truss's mistake raised a question that was picked up by the Russian media and many others: why did she even come to Russia? Why fly from London to snowy Moscow and claim that British officials have been talking for weeks about Russia and Ukraine? And in the end, randomly demonstrate that you don't understand what you're talking about?» — the journalist was indignant. Dezhevsky suggested that Truss came to Russia for personal interests, in particular, to behave in the style of the «iron lady» Margaret Thatcher. However, as the observer concluded, the foreign minister lacked the firmness, straightforwardness and knowledge of facts that were characteristic of the former British prime minister.The journalist said about the «ridiculous» trick of the British Foreign Minister on Red Square. Earlier, a RIA Novosti source said that during the talks between the British Foreign Minister and Lavrov on Thursday, they had a discussion about information about Russian troops near the border with Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister asked Truss whether London recognizes sovereignty over the Voronezh and Rostov regions. To this, she allegedly replied that «Great Britain will never recognize Russia's sovereignty over these regions.» Then, a message was posted on the Telegram channel of the diplomatic mission that the head of the Foreign Office, speaking about the Voronezh and Rostov regions, thought that it was about Ukraine. The main topics of discussion between the Russian and British foreign ministers were Moscow's demands for security guarantees and the Ukrainian crisis. Lavrov said after the talks that he was disappointed with the progress of the dialogue.