MOSCOW, February 12. /TASS/. The whole affair involving the publication of Alexey Navalny’s video about the "palace in Gelendzhik", which was timed for his return to Russia, was a masterminded campaign, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Vladimir Solovyov on the YouTube channel Solovyov Live.

"Let’s get back to the question ‘Why Alexey Navalny’. Had there been no Navalny, there would have been something else. This ‘case’, in modern parlance, was masterminded in advance. To select a date for his return, and then to show them film. All lies on the surface. But it is noteworthy that now, when a wave of attacks against Russia is in progress, nobody recalls the ‘poisoning’. They say that Alexey Navalny was convicted unlawfully and must be freed," Lavrov said.