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Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova's reply to a media question about the functioning of Russian and US diplomatic missions

29 October 202120:53
2210-29-10-2021

Question: What can you say about the current functioning of Russian and US diplomatic missions?

Maria Zakharova: We have long ceased being surprised by all kinds of leaks and statements by US officials about the ostensibly unbearable conditions in which the US Embassy in Moscow has to work.

Let me recall that it was Washington that ratcheted up the spiral of confrontation by resorting to its destructive practices of confiscating Russian diplomatic property and expelling employees of our foreign missions en masse, in violation of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. For our part, we displayed restraint for too long, appealing to common sense and warning Washington about the consequences of these Russophobic attacks, but it continued making them.

However, patience eventually runs out in any situation. The Americans are now reaping the results of their aggressive and shortsighted policy. Having now faced a new reality of reciprocal painful restrictions, they are histrionically pretending to be innocent victims of arbitrary treatment, as if asking "What have we done to deserve this?"

We have repeatedly described in detail the damage done to Russian diplomatic missions. Our consulates general in San Francisco and Seattle are closed down. Over a hundred of our employees and their family members have been expelled under different pretexts, including as "persona non-grata" since the end of 2016. And what is completely unheard-of in the canons of diplomacy and the right to property that has always been held sacred in the United States, the US authorities seized six Russian properties like raiders and surrounded them with a police cordon. They have not allowed Russian diplomats to go there since then. We asked the US Department of State to return them or at least to let us inspect the buildings and land but our requests were regularly turned down without explanation. We merely received non-committal replies.

Moreover, the deceptive assurances of US representatives in their commitment to normalising the functioning of Russian and American embassies and consulates do not contain even a hint of willingness to negotiate as equals. They are complaining on the record about Moscow's groundless ban on hiring local personnel. They are lamenting that it disrupts the work of all embassy services, including the consular function that is of primary importance in the diplomatic missions of any country.

Of course, we prefer to discuss all these internal problems in regular order. We believe it is necessary to conduct a professional dialogue with a view to searching for solutions in this complicated situation that has taken shape not through Russia's fault. Nothing prevents the Americans from fully filling a more than sufficient quota of 455 people for personnel, including consular officers that are so much in demand. Instead, Washington is deliberately leaking to the media inaccurate assertions, to put it mildly, that the Russian diplomatic presence in the US exceeds that of the US in Russia four times over. They count the members of our permanent mission to the UN in New York although it has nothing to do with our bilateral diplomatic missions.

A comparison of embassies and consular offices shows a completely different picture. The Americans now have about 130 employees in Russia, while our mission in Washington and two consulates general in New York and Houston have under 200 people. Considering that Washington demands that another 55 Russian diplomats, as well as administrative and technical workers leave the US in the next few months (which is tantamount to expulsion), the situation on the diplomatic front will only go from bad to worse.

The persistent attempts to take a confrontational course of action in the hope of gaining unilateral benefits, cutting off our oxygen, is a road to nowhere. Every hostile US action will be followed by a swift and commensurate, although not necessarily symmetrical, response. We suggest again stopping the flywheel of escalation and starting a meaningful, honest and mutually respectful dialogue on all irritants in bilateral relations. Washington is well aware of the option we prefer – to remove all mutual restrictions that have piled up in the past few years.