Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova criticized the presence of foreign diplomats at the meeting on the case of Alexei Navalny ( founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation – FBK, included by the Ministry of Justice in the register of organizations performing the functions of a foreign agent ) in the Moscow City Court, calling it interference in the internal affairs of the Russian Federation. She wrote about this on her Facebook.
Zakharova recalled that diplomats usually support their citizens in foreign courts. However, since Navalny is a citizen of the Russian Federation, she noted that “this is not just interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state,” but “self-exposure of the unsightly and illegal role of the collective West in attempts to contain Russia.”
“I don’t exclude that [diplomats] are to a large extent concerned about the fate of the NATO (for example, British and American) millions in illegal activities on Russian territory – reports to the capitals about what they went for, they will have to write,” Zakharova added.
Earlier it was reported that about 20 employees of the embassies of different countries arrived at the Moscow City Court, where the question of replacing Alexey Navalny's suspended sentence with a real one in the Yves Rocher case is being decided at an exit meeting. In particular, representatives of the embassies of such countries as the USA, Bulgaria, Poland, Latvia, Austria, Switzerland arrived there.
