LONDON, May 21. /TASS/. The report in The Irish Times on the activities of the Foundation to Support and Defend the Rights of Compatriots Living Abroad is a clear example of open Russophobia and malicious slander, Russian Ambassador to Dublin Yury Filatov told a TASS correspondent.
The Irish Times newspaper earlier published an article saying that while the foundation is used exclusively to provide legal support to Russian citizens in Ireland, it is allegedly connected with Russian intelligence agencies in other countries. The newspaper's authors mentioned two Irish lawyers who cooperate with the foundation. Both lawyers told The Irish Times that they only work on tasks enshrined in the organization’s charter and fully comply with the law.
"This is not the first instance of disinformation from the newspaper. We are more or less used to it, but this recent one is quite significant. It's baseless slander intended to smear the work of our Foundation to Support and Defend the Rights of Compatriots Living Abroad and to intimidate those who cooperate with it," the diplomat said.
According to Filatov, the newspaper failed to mention the embassy’s position and said that it did not have the embassy’s commentary. "Before publishing the report, The Irish Times correspondent sent us questions that made it clear what the article would be about. We answered them. Clearly, our commentary did not align with the newspaper’s agenda, so they lied by writing that the embassy did not respond to their questions. In this regard, we intend to send a formal complaint to the editorial board of The Irish Times and demand that they publish our commentary in full," the ambassador said. "This is all transparent," he added.