Sergei Lavrov blames UK for increasing tensions during first visit to Russia by a British foreign secretary for five years

Boris Johnson and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, sparred over the issue of alleged Russian meddling in the Brexit referendum during the first visit by a British foreign secretary to Moscow for five years.

Johnson was in Moscow on Friday to engage with Russian officials on global issues such as Syria and North Korea but also to warn them over election interference. The public statements suggested there had been little progress on either front.

During a joint press conference, Lavrov made the latest in a series of blanket Russian denials over interference in western votes, and said Johnson himself had said there was “no evidence of Russian interference in the Brexit referendum”.

Johnson corrected the Russian minister: “‘Not successfully’ is what I said.”



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“He’s scared that if he doesn’t disagree with me, his reputation will be ruined at home,” Lavrov said.

“Sergei, it’s your reputation I’m worried about,” Johnson retorted.

The exchange, only half-joking, was symptomatic of the deep discord in the relationship. In public comments before the talks, Lavrov chided Johnson for his public criticism of Russia and said the miserable state of bilateral relations was London’s fault.

“It’s no secret that our relations are at a low point and that’s not at our initiative,” Lavrov said. “We’ve noticed you and other western countries have your reasons for this and you prefer to speak about them publicly. We would prefer to discuss these issues directly, not in public through microphones.”

Johnson conceded that “things are not easy between us at the moment”, noting that Britain had issues with Russia’s actions in Ukraine, the western Balkans and cyberspace.

Johnson also said, however, that “we must not allow ourselves to be defined by these problems” and that there were a number of issues of global importance, notably Syria and North Korea, on which the countries should try to work together.

He also referred to the long history of Anglo-Russian relations going back to Elizabeth I and Ivan the Terrible, and noted current cultural and trade links. He told a bemused-looking Lavrov that exports of Kettle crisps and Bentleys from Britain to Russia were doing well.

Johnson said he adopted the approach to Lavrov that Ronald Reagan had taken with Mikhail Gorbachev: “Trust, but verify.”

And he joked that his trust was so great that he had handed his coat with “everything in my pockets, secret or otherwise” to Lavrov when he arrived at the ministry of foreign affairs building. Lavrov joked back: “I can say that there was nothing in the pockets of Boris’s coat”, to which Johnson responded in surprise: “So you have searched it already?”

After the talks, Johnson said: “There is no point in simply sitting on the sidelines and complaining about each other, we have to engage, we have to talk to each other.”



Lavrov said the pair had discussed a range of international issues, including Syria, Iran, North Korea and Ukraine, but there was little sign of any agreement or concrete proposals on any of the issues.

Lavrov’s brush-off over the interference claims was to be expected, as Russia has denied all allegations of hacking, cyber armies or other forms of meddling. “We haven’t seen any evidence except that for four kopecks someone put an advert on social media,” Lavrov said of the alleged Brexit meddling.

Russian officials have mocked the paucity of the public evidence provided over the allegations that Russian interventions on social media had an effect on the outcome of the EU referendum in Britain.

After lunch with Lavrov, Johnson later laid flowers at a memorial to the murdered opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, and met with a group of civil society activists. Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch said she was pleased Johnson had taken the time to meet civil society and was “an eager listener” but appeared to be poorly informed about the situation in the country.



“He did not seem to have a good grasp of the human rights situation in Russia and could clearly benefit from learning more and following the situation more closely,” said Lokshina.

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Johnson has twice previously this year cancelled trips to Moscow at the last minute. A trip in April was called off in the aftermath of the Khan Sheikhun chemical attack in Syria and subsequent US airstrikes against a Syrian government airbase.



Johnson irritated the Russians with a newspaper interview on the eve of his visit in which he compared the country to Sparta, “closed, nasty, militaristic and anti-democratic”. He told Lavrov on Friday that he had in fact been referring to the Soviet Union and not Russia.

Also on the agenda for Johnson’s visit was the issue of cooperation ahead of the 2018 World Cup in Russia, including consular issues for travelling England fans and security issues. England will play their group games in three provincial Russian cities: Volgograd, Nizhny Novgorod and Kaliningrad. Johnson confirmed that British and Russian police are already cooperating on potential security issues, and said he hoped Russia and England would meet in the final.



Before departing from Moscow on Friday evening, Johnson gave a speech to students at the Plekhanov University, in which he extolled the virtues of a free society.

“A liberal society and free society is on the whole likely to be a society that is more successful and more prosperous as well as being more tolerant,” he said.