WASHINGTON, March 16. /TASS/. The Russian side considers US Department of State Spokesperson Ned Price’s statements about Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov’s comments on the incident with a US drone over the Black Sea as unacceptable, Russian embassy spokesman Igor Girenko said on Wednesday.
"We have acquainted ourselves with the statements of the official representative of the US State Department Ned Price made during his interview with MSNBC. We consider the Press Secretary’s assessments of Ambassador of the Russian Federation to the United States of America Anatoly Antonov’s comments on the incident with the MQ-9 Reaper drone over the Black Sea to be unacceptable, especially if they come from an employee of the US diplomatic service," he stressed. "Such definitions are beyond any decorum."
In an interview with MSNBC, the State Department spokesman claimed that the statements Antonov made when he was summoned to the US Department of State over the incident over the Black Sea were unconvincing.
"We're not going to make excuses about what was said. The Russian Ambassador’s statements are based on the comment of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, as well as on further statements of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and President Putin's Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on this matter," the embassy noted. "Apparently, the things Anatoly Antonov said were not accurately translated for Mr. Price. At least we want to believe it. In particular, it was not asserted that the drone was in Russian airspace."
According to Girenko, the problem is that the drone operators "were poorly acquainted with the previous information of our Defense Ministry." "In particular, with the information about the boundaries of the temporary airspace regime established for the special military operation. If Americans had not penetrated the above-mentioned zone, there would not have been such a sad outcome for the UAV," he said. "I would like to draw the attention of the official representative to the fact that Russian Ambassador spoke in favor of pragmatic relations between the two states as well as stressed the importance of developing a dialogue between Russia and the United States for the benefit of the peoples of the two countries. We have not heard such theses from the U.S. Press Secretary for a long time.".