All news

No official data about any ‘Russian spies’ received from Netherlands, says Lavrov

Moscow cannot and will not take seriously any media leaks, the diplomat stressed

BERLIN, September 14. /TASS/. Russia has received no official information from the Dutch government about any expelled "Russian spies," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday after talks with his German counterpart, Heiko Maas.

"You said that somewhere in the Netherlands, with the assistance from Switzerland and the United Kingdom, two spies had been arrested and expelled. I cannot imagine that such an operation involving specialists from three Western nations was overlooked by the mass media," he said. "If any fact are presented we will be able to comment them."

"A news has recently been released that an employee of the Russian embassy in Rome was recruited in April and the British special services gave him a nickname ‘Apollo.’ But none of the employees in Rome has disappeared anywhere."

"We cannot and will not take seriously such media leaks seeking to turn the media into an instrument of unsavory politics," Lavrov stressed.