Excerpts from Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s answers to media questions at a joint news conference following talks with Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz
January 18, 2017
Sergey Lavrov: "Frankly, we have already started to grow weary of discussing the issue of Russian interference in US internal affairs, in particular the election campaign that ended with the election of Donald Trump as president. Because these baseless, unsubstantiated, slanderous accusations continue to surface, I would like to say that the cynicism of the situation is that we are being accused by those who in fact actively interfered in the election campaign themselves. Through the president and other representatives, Russia has repeatedly stated that we are ready to work with any president the American people vote for in accordance with US law. With any president, whoever the winner is. However, unlike us, a number of leaders of US allied countries openly campaigned for Hillary Clinton. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande, UK Prime Minister Theresa May and leaders of other European states were actively involved in that. What’s more, in addition to direct campaigning for Hillary Clinton, official representatives of European countries had no qualms about demonising Donald Trump. For example, my German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier called him, if I remember correctly, a “preacher of hatred.” UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson even said that Donald Trump is inadequate, while then-French Prime Minister Manuel Valls stated that the Republican candidate was rejected by the entire world. And all of that was said not in a whisper in a narrow circle but loudly and to the whole world.".