MOSCOW, September 4. /TASS/. The information that blogger Alexey Navalny was sponsored by foreign embassies to Russia has been confirmed, as most of these donations went through the US and German diplomatic missions, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel on Saturday.
"I have read the information that among those who sponsored Navalny’s projects were dozens of employees of foreign embassies to Russia. I decided to find out whether it was a fake. It happened not to be a fake and everything was confirmed. The scheme is as follows: foreign embassies to Russia used to hire Russian nationals and pay them money which they later transferred to corresponding agencies. Guess which embassies most donations went through. That’s right. Through the diplomatic missions of the United States and Germany," the diplomat wrote.
The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman pointed out that employees of the embassies of Canada, France, Spain and other NATO members also took part in this "little merry-go-round."
"Whether foreign governments came up with this form of money transfer specially for Navalny or whether it was a surprising coincidence of feeling between the employers and employees should be sorted out by our civil activists and journalists," Zakharova continued.
"To be honest, I am interested in something else. Can you imagine what hysteria would break out in the Western mainstream media if employees of the Russian diplomatic institutions transferred money to, for example, Republicans in the US or Catalans in Spain? There would be screams all over the planet," Zakharova went on to say.
She recalled that dozens Russian diplomats were expelled from the United States after the 2016 presidential election over evidence-free accusations of interference in the electoral process.
"It is scary to imagine what would have happened if they had found even a dollar [transferred] for one of the political parties, from, for example, a cultural attach·, a representative of Rossotrudnichestvo (Russia’s Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation - TASS) or a correspondent of a federal media outlet in the United States," Zakharova said in conclusion.