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Foreign Ministry slams UK daily’s ‘paranoid lie’ on Russian embassy bunkers in Dublin

The Russian Foreign Ministry expressed the hope the British daily The Times would refute the falsehood

Russian Foreign Ministry Mikhail Japaridze/TASS

Russian Foreign Ministry

© Mikhail Japaridze/TASS

MOSCOW, June 6. /TASS/. The article in the UK daily, The Times, claiming that Russia is building secret rooms under its embassy in Dublin is a paranoid fantasy and an attempt to whip up Russophobic hysteria, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

"We have taken note of the article entitled Irish Government Denies Visas to Russian Embassy Builders, published in The Times on May 13, 2018," the Foreign Ministry said. "In defiance of official explanations by the Russian embassy spokesman in Dublin the newspaper claims that the Russian embassy in Ireland needs builders for creating a series of underground secret rooms."

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"Once again we have exposed attempts by the British press, in this particular case, The Times, to lie and foment anti-Russian hysteria. The paranoid fantasies about a Russian threat are on the conscience of the journalist who offered up this story to be published," the Foreign Ministry said.

According to the Foreign Ministry’s commentary, the author of the article claims that the "yet-to-be-built rooms would be used by Russian secret services in conducting illegal intelligence operations in Ireland in order to obtain and transmit to Moscow coded information concerning high technology, security, pharmaceuticals and banking."

The Russian Foreign Ministry expressed the hope that the daily would refute this falsehood.

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