Russian representative denies being summoned by Foreign Minister’s remarks

MADRID, 19 (EUROPA PRESS)

Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Joly, said on Wednesday that she had summoned the Russian ambassador to Ottawa, Oleg Stepanov, to protest against the recent Russian attacks in Dnipro which killed nearly fifty people, as well as the recent statements by his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.

Joly said the meeting aims to “make it clear that we do not accept the sheer brutality of Russia’s recent attacks on civilians in Dnipro and to condemn face to face the anti-Semitic remarks made by Lavrov”, as reported ‘Ottawa Citizen’.

Lavrov claimed hours earlier that the United States had organized a “coalition” with Western countries to “resolve the Russian question” in a manner similar to Adolf Hitler’s “final solution” to exterminate the Jews.

“Just as Napoleon mobilized almost all of Europe against the Russian Empire, and just as Hitler mobilized, captured and armed most European countries against the Soviet Union, the United States organized a coalition with almost all the European countries, not just NATO members, for a war against our country through Ukraine,” he said.

After that, Canada’s foreign minister insisted that “Lavrov’s comments, after previous anti-Semitic comments, are a complete disrespect for the victims and survivors of the Holocaust.”

“Let’s be very clear: the Russian regime is the aggressor, not the victim,” Joly remarked, arguing that Canada “will always continue to counter hatred and those who manipulate the truth,” according to his profile on the social network Twitter. . .

The Russian Embassy in Canada responded to Joly, recalling that Canada and Russia were allies during World War II, with the role of the then Soviet Union being a “decisive force in saving Europe from Nazism. and put an end to the genocide”.

STEPANOV, SURPRISED BY CANADA

Stepanov assured that the Canadian Foreign Ministry only summoned him to discuss the issue of the Dnipro tragedy, denying the statements of Joly, to whom he assured that he also wanted to criticize the recent intervention of his counterpart Russian.

“I saw this statement from Joly after the meeting, and I was a little surprised, because of the invitation from Foreign Affairs, it was up to the Canadian side to ask me about the Dnipro tragedy,” assured the diplomat.

“It was all about that, and you can imagine it was following the predictable lines of general Western propaganda,” he criticized, as reported by the TASS news agency.

According to the ambassador, Joly’s actions respond to the fact that “it’s not diplomatic, but political”, at the same time as he called her “pro-Ukrainian and hyper-anti-Russian”.

“Western countries, with their policy of confrontation, are worsening any chance of achieving diplomatic results after our military operation ends,” he said.