BELGRADE, April 24. /TASS/. Attempts to deliberately misrepresent humanitarian campaigns of Russia in Italy and Serbia are cynical and will not be able to make their contents null and void, Russia’s Ambassador to Serbia Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko said in an interview for Serbian Vecernje Novosti daily published on Friday.
When asked to comment on the fact that certain forces would like to interpret the assistance of Russian military doctors in Serbia and Italy as Moscow’s attempt to boost its geostrategic position, the ambassador replied, "It is cynical and shameless to even review this."
"I would like to remind [you] that as was the case with Serbia, the decision to send help to Italy was made after receiving a direct appeal of the Italian leadership, of Prime Minister [Giuseppe] Conte. Russia equally responded to every single appeal [for help] coming from the CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States — TASS], Abkhazia and South Ossetia. All these decisions were purely of humanitarian nature and not defined by political climate. Nevertheless, the attempts to misrepresent these humanitarian campaigns by distorting their aims will not cancel out their true meaning and will not nullify their tangible results," he stressed.
The diplomat underlined that Serbia and Italy welcome the Russian help with hope and gratitude. Botsan-Kharchenko revealed that as of April 22, Russian military specialists disinfected 88 facilities in 15 Serbian cities, as well as around 190 buildings and 51 road sections. In addition to that, more than 500 coronavirus patients were admitted.
- President of Republika Srpska decorates Russian servicemen for coronavirus assistance
- Russian medics visit hospitals for COVID-19 patients in Serbia's Vranje
- Russian servicemen decontaminate over 60,000 square meters of indoor areas in Serbia
- Russian doctors cure 15 patients of coronavirus in Italy’s Bergamo
- Field hospital chief in Italy’s Bergamo lauds Russian medical aid to combat coronavirus
- Russian military medics begin treating COVID-19 patients with moderate symptoms in Bergamo
- Russian military doctors cure seven Italians from coronavirus in Bergamo
- 36 out of 65 care homes in Italy’s Bergamo disinfected by Russian military specialists
Serbia’s current coronavirus cases stand at 7,276, the number of fatalities rose to 139. Serbia fully shut down its borders, imposed a state of emergency and a curfew, while inter-city bus and rail traffic was suspended.
Earlier, Serbia’s government asked Russia’s assistance in fighting against the novel coronavirus. Belgrade sought concrete assistance under the intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in emergency and humanitarian response. Commenting on Belgrade’s request, Russian president’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov pledged that "a request from such an important, allied, brotherly country as Serbia will not be unanswered." On April 3-4, the Russian air force jets transferred 87 Russian military specialists to Serbia including doctors, virologists of radiation, chemical and biological forces as well as special medical equipment, PPE and 16 units of military vehicles. The Russian medical brigades are deployed across the country.
In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus — named COVID-19 by the WHO — have been reported in every corner of the globe.
On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 2,700,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 191,000 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 750,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.