Russian ambassador calls on Swiss media to refrain from creating tensions

Constructive dialogue will help resolve all the emerging issues, Russian Ambassador to Switzerland Sergei Garmonin said in an interview with the Swiss SRF broadcaster on Thursday. He also called on the Swiss media to refrain from creating tensions in relations between the two countries.

"I would like to address the media and call on them to refrain from creating tensions as there have been and is no reason for that," the ambassador said. "I am confident that constructive dialogue, which is appropriate for our relations of partnership, will make it possible to overcome the existing disagreements," he added.

The interview, the full text of which will be published on the Russian embassy’s website, was focused on the current state of relations between Moscow and Bern following a number of publications in the Swiss media, claiming that Russians are allegedly involved in espionage activities in the country. According to Garmonin, "no facts have been officially presented to Russia so far, which would prove that our embassy personnel or other Russian representatives in Switzerland are involved in any illegal activities."

"Everything that we have heard so far is based on allegations and assumptions and is expressed in the subjunctive mood," the Russian ambassador noted.

On September 14, the Swiss Tages Anzeiger newspaper published an article claiming that in the spring of 2018, two Russians allegedly planning to travel to Switzerland to spy on the Spiez chemical laboratory had been arrested and then released in the Netherlands. On the next day, the same newspaper and the Tribune de Geneve daily reported that Swiss prosecutors suspected the same two Russians of spying on the Lausanne office of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). On Sunday, the Sonntagszeitung and Le Matin Dimanche newspapers wrote that one in four Russians accredited in Switzerland were spies.

On September 18, Switzerland’s Ambassador to Moscow Yves Rossier was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry that demanded explanations for the recent groundless accusations against Russia of stepping up the activities of its intelligence services in Switzerland and some Russian agents’ involvement in illegal activities aimed against the country’s critical infrastructure. The Russian Foreign Ministry pointed out that such confrontational rhetoric could damage progressing bilateral relations.