MOSCOW, June 3. /TASS/. The West’s accusations against Moscow look ridiculous against the background of Russia’s continued development even during the pandemic and its capabilities of holding the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF-2021), Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Channel One on Thursday.

"Stories about human rights that were constantly presented to us due to some sort of our second-ratedness, endless reproaches of non-existent hacker attacks, endless stories of interference in foreign elections - all of this, probably, has been played out already and is irrelevant, looks so grotesque against the background of the largest international event being conducted today so it’s not even worth mentioning," she said.

"Many people asked me: ‘Earlier, before COVID, when Russia was holding these forums, Moscow wanted to prove that Russia is not isolated. And what do you want to prove with this forum now, in the post-COVID era?’ The way such questions are formulated indicate that many people abroad exist not in reality but in some sort of mythology. We don’t want to prove anything to anyone. We are living and developing," the diplomat said.

She added that the meetings of NATO and EU countries are taking place not so much against the background of anti-Russian hysteria but rather with their own problems as a backdrop. As an example, the diplomat cited the scandal around the US National Security Agency (NSA) wiretapping European politicians with the assistance of Danish intelligence and called this incident unprecedented. "In spite of the fact that Denmark together with Sweden, for instance, participate in a joint program on cyberattack prevention, simultaneously Copenhagen is spying on Stockholm in the interests of another state," she noted. "This is a problem worth discussing in the West. The most interesting thing is that, as opposed to hot Russophobic stories, Western countries do not rush to print the story of their own unseemly and not very decent behavior on the front pages," the spokeswoman added.

The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, organized by the Roscongress Foundation, is held on June 2-5. The topic of this year’s forum is "Together again. The economy of a new reality." SPIEF-2021 is held in a face-to-face format with all anti-coronavirus measures observed. TASS is the official photo hosting agency and information partner of the event.