Stop meddling in foreign elections, Johnson tells his Russian hosts

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MOSCOW: British foreign minister Boris Johnson told his Russian counterpart yesterday there was “abundant evidence” of Moscow meddling in foreign elections but said Russian efforts to interfere in last year’s Brexit vote had fallen flat.

On the first visit to Russia by a British foreign minister in five years, Johnson said he wanted to normalise UK-Russia relations, which were going through “a very difficult patch”. But that didn’t mean pretending Britain did not have serious concerns about Russia’s behaviour, he said.

“We can’t pretend that they (the problems) do not exist, and that we share a common perspective on the events in Ukraine, or in the Western Balkans or… on Russian activities in cyberspace,” said Johnson.

He also said Britain had a duty to speak up for the LGBT community in Chechnya. Two men from Chechnya claimed in June they had been tortured because they were gay. Chechen authorities deny it.

Johnson’s visit comes at a time when relations between London and Moscow are strained by differences over Ukraine and Syria, as well as by allegations, which Russia denies, Moscow had meddled in the politics of various European countries by backing cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov challenged this, however, saying Johnson himself had recently said he had no proof Moscow had meddled in the British referendum on leaving the EU.

“Not successfully, not suc- cessfully, I think is the word,” Johnson – a leading advocate of Brexit – shot back, to which Lavrov replied: “He’s scared that if he doesn’t disagree with me, his reputation will be ruined at home.”

Johnson, who said there was abundant evidence of Russian election meddling in Germany, the US and other countries, said it was Lavrov’s reputation he was worried about.

“I think it is very important… to recognise Russian attempts to interfere in our elections or in our referendum, whatever they may have been, they’ve not been successful.”

Lavrov blamed Britain for the poor state of relations, complaining about “insulting and aggressive statements” from London.

But although the two spent much of their joint news conference exchanging barbs, both sounded upbeat when it came to co-operation in narrow areas, such as in the UN Security Council and on security arrangements for next year’s soccer World Cup in Russia.

Lavrov complained, how- ever, that Britain was still not fully co-operating with Russia’s FSB security service.

Johnson had riled Russian officials before his visit by telling Britain’s Sunday Times Moscow was “closed, nasty, militaristic and anti-democratic”.

But when asked about the comment, he said he had been referring to the Soviet Union, not modern Russia.

Russian media has portrayed Johnson as anti-Russian but he told reporters yesterday he was “a committed Russophile”. – Reuters