Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde has shared with top Russian diplomat Sergey Lavrov a story of her spilling coffee on opposition activist Alexey Navalny
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd February, 2021) Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde has shared with top Russian diplomat Sergey Lavrov a story of her spilling coffee on opposition activist Alexey Navalny.
Linde is currently on a visit to Moscow as the OSCE chairperson-in-office. In the run-up to the talks, she voiced her intention to discuss the situation around Navalny, his arrest and the weekend's unauthorized rallies in his support.
"I have been a board member of the [Swedish NGO] Olof Palme International Centre. I have met him many times and once even spilled coffee on him," Linde said.
In response, Lavrov called his Swedish counterpart a "dangerous woman," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on Facebook.
The Russian Foreign Ministry earlier advised foreign politicians commenting on the situation with Navalny to respect internal law and deal with its own domestic problems. Lavrov noted that his Western counterparts are visibly happy to churn out nearly identical statements.
Navalny was detained in mid-January upon his arrival from Germany, where he was treated for an alleged poisoning, and placed in custody for 30 days for violating probation terms on an earlier embezzlement conviction. On Tuesday, a Moscow court will decide on whether to replace his suspended sentence with a prison term.
On January 23 and 31, many Russian cities saw rallies in support of Navalny. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has called the organizers of the unauthorized protests provocateurs.
