Russian Govt Calls Out Media Portal For “Ludicrous Attempt To Create Sensation”; Asks It To Focus On Facts

In a tweet from the official account of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Russian government slammed the media portal ThePrint for a report on India-Russia annual summit calling it an “attempt to create a sensation” which looked “ludicrous and helpless”.

The tweet posted a screenshot of the article and labelled it ‘fake’. In the linked Facebook post, the ministry said that the Indian newspaper ThePrint's attempt to create a sensation from nothing failed and it came out looking ludicrous and helpless in the process.

An article published in ThePrint on 23 January stated that “..tensions have begun to simmer in the bilateral ties over Russia’s rhetoric against India’s increasing alignment with the US, diplomatic sources told The Print”.

In response, the Russian ministry put out a Facebook post saying that at an event two days before the report, “during a briefing with the participation of Russian Ambassador to India Nikolay Kudashev.. members of the media were informed about the well-known position of Moscow: Russia welcomes the commitment of its Indian partners to the promotion of inclusive formats of regional cooperation as opposed to the division that a number of other countries are trying to impose, as they build their policies in the spirit of containment.”

The post also noted that “our colleagues in the Indian Foreign Ministry also drew attention to The Print’s “sensational” material, emphasising that in 2020, the summit, with the mutual agreement of the parties, had not taken place due to the pandemic, and insinuations of any other kind were invalid.”

The post stated that the Indian Foreign Ministry noted separately that the spread of false information about important bilateral relations was “particularly irresponsible.”

“We hope that the outlet will draw necessary conclusions and will from now on focus on facts, rather than flashy headlines aimed at attracting attention,” the post by Russian ministry read.