British foreign minister Boris Johnson is poisoned with hatred and anger so it is scary that he represents a nuclear power, Russia's foreign ministry spokeswoman said on Wednesday.
Maria Zakharova was commenting on Johnson's earlier statement that compared Russia's hosting of this year's World Cup to the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany.
“Any such parallels and comparisons between our country, that lost millions of lives in the fight against Nazism, fought with an enemy on its own territory, and then liberated Europe [and Nazi Germany] are absolutely unacceptable,” she said, in a statement published on Facebook.
The Russian ministry spokeswoman then added that such statements are “unworthy of a head of a European state’s diplomatic service … It is clear that [Boris Johnson] is poisoned with hatred and anger,” she said, also denouncing his words as “unprofessional” and “rude.”
It is “scary” that “this man is a representative of a nuclear power that bears a special responsibility for its actions in the international arena as well as for the preservation of international peace,” Zakharova said.
Now “it is beyond the shadow of a doubt that all London’s actions … were aimed at setting up a spectre of an enemy out of Russia, using any, even the most absurd reasons,” Zakharova said. She then added that British politicians are now apparently seeking to fully boycott the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
Earlier on Wednesday, Johnson once again blatantly accused Russia of being behind the poisoning of the former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, as he was being quizzed by the Commons foreign affairs committee. He also said he believes the comparison between the World Cup and the 1936 Olympics “is certainly right” just because the sporting event would somehow “glorify” Putin, from his point of view.
Skripal, 66, and his 33-year-old daughter Yulia have been in critical condition in hospital since March 4, when they were found unconscious on a bench outside a shopping center in Salisbury. The UK police later said that the two were poisoned by a nerve agent, which was called “Novichok.” No other tangible results of the investigation into this case have been made public yet.
However, this reality apparently did not stop London and its western allies from immediately putting all the blame for the incident on Russia. Last week, Prime Minister Theresa May confronted Moscow with an ultimatum to reveal the details of the alleged Skripal plot. Other Western countries expressed their “solidarity” with the UK on what they called the results of the British investigation, implying that Russia was culpable in this case.
Moscow repeatedly denied its involvement in the incident and called for an inclusive joint investigation, expressing its readiness to take part in it. It also rejected the British ultimatum. The UK then imposed sanctions on Moscow, which included expelling 23 diplomats, limiting diplomatic ties and freezing Russian state assets in the UK.