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Stockholm not to deviate from confrontation course with Moscow, Russian Embassy says

Stockholm does not strive to seek roads to sanitize bilateral cooperation with Russia, the embassy noted

STOCKHOLM, August 3. /TASS/. Sweden does not intend to deviate from its chosen confrontation course with regards to Russia and does not seek ways to improve bilateral Russian-Swedish cooperation, Russia’s Embassy in Stockholm wrote on its Facebook page on Monday, commenting on an article in Sweden’s Expressen newspaper about a phone conversation between Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde and pranksters posing as blogger Alexey Navalny’s spouse Yulia Navalnaya and former head of the network of Alexey Navalny’s regional headquarters (recognized in Russia as extremist) Leonid Volkov.

"Unfortunately, even considering it was a scam, the content of the conversation convinces us again that Stockholm is not remembered to deviate from its chosen confrontation course towards our country and does not strive to seek roads to sanitize bilateral cooperation with Russia.

Instead of calls to develop good neighboring relations between Moscow and Stockholm, the minister says openly about Swedish authorities preparedness to finance an extremist organization that is banned in our country and support non system opposition," the embassy noted.

Additionally, the Russian diplomats were also surprised by the subsequent commentary of the press service of Sweden’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs that the conversation took place ··after an official request." "We would like to draw the special attention of the Swedish diplomacy champion to the fact that Navalnyj's employees are not representatives of official Russian authorities, and therefore cannot be considered as a source of official requests by definition," the embassy’s statement emphasized.

The diplomats also noted that the press service of Sweden’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs had made an erroneous "deep-minded conclusion that ··foreign policy relations have not been affected (i.e. Swedish-Russian relations).·· "Such outplays in support of a so-called ··opposition·· constitute, gracious gentlemen, a clear example of intervention in neighboring Russia's internal affairs and cannot be considered in a different way than directly harmful to our bilateral relations," the embassy concluded.

On July 29, Linde talked for more than ten minutes with people who claimed to be the representatives of the Russian opposition in a phone call organized by Russia’s best-known tricksters - Vladimir Kuznetsov (nicknamed Vovan) and Alexei Stolyarov (who calls himself Lexus). During the conversation, the Swedish top diplomat talked about assistance to Russia’s civic society and EU sanctions against Russia. She made it clear that Sweden may support the opposition even more.

In its commentary to the newspaper, the press service of Sweden’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs notes that it is important for the foreign minister to be open for contact and dialogue with the representatives of civil communities of other countries, while it is sad that this openness is being exploited in this way.