You would think that if the principal foreign policy spokesman for Russia, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, gave a lengthy exclusive interview to “the most widely respected and circulated newspaper” of one of Europe’s most important nations, that they would at least deem it important to publish it—whether or not they agreed with Lavrov’s views.
Think again.
On Nov. 1, Lavrov provided lengthy answers to questions asked by Italy’s Corriere della Sera. He refuted widespread media lies and recounted the actual, strategically crucial chronology of the breakdown of the “Anchorage approach” to U.S.-Russian relations taken by U.S. Presidents Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, and directly blamed the United Kingdom for playing the leading role in that sabotage, because they favor war against Russia.
Corriere told the Kremlin that they would not publish the entire interview, because it contained “many questionable assertions requiring fact-checking or additional clarification,” and only published excerpts of their choosing—less than 25% of the full interview. The Russian Foreign Ministry responded by publishing the entire interview on Nov. 13 on the Foreign Ministry website, “which the newspaper refused to publish in full without cuts or censorship.”
Among the numerous important policy issues addressed by Lavrov, is the following explanation of the international pressure brought to bear on President Trump to get him to abandon the fruitful approach that he and Putin had agreed to in their Anchorage, Alaska summit meeting on Aug. 15.
