Russia: Zakharova ‘perplexed’ by British officials' attitude to World Cup

I cannot help but say that we are still deeply perplexed by the British officials’ reaction to the World Cup who endlessly link sport and politics and encourage the British media to do the same. I think that this is beyond understanding. In spite of all this anti-Russian propaganda, we see that 10,000 fans from Great Britain arrived. It seems to me that they did not have enough of officials in the stands, particularly yesterday. Even according to media reports, I saw no one even from the British embassy, no official representative was present at the match, this is their choice, but I say once again that at some point you still have to make responsible decisions and stop following the line of that madness, which was fired up before the World Cup by British politicians.
Most of the attention is drawn to the events in the south-west of the country. The operation to clean up terrorists from the province of Daraa and Quneitra comes into the final stage there. Now, the province of Daraa has been liberated almost completely, an agreement has been reached to resolve the situation in the southern and south-eastern quarters of its eponymous administrative centre in Daraa, which have been under the control of illegal armed groups for more than seven years.
We consider the conducting of exercises [Sea Breeze] an attempt to provoke tension once again, not only in the southeast of Ukraine, but also in the Black Sea as a whole. The responsibility for possible negative consequences is on those countries that involve Ukraine in dangerous games with fire and constantly accuse Russia of threatening regional stability.
We also paid attention to the next provocative statements by the US special envoy in the negotiations on Ukraine, Mr. Volcker, said in an interview to the German paper Bild, he made them on July 6 about the situation in Donbass. I say once again that it is not the first time that we notice that American diplomats, instead of looking for ways to implement the Minsk Agreements and facilitate this process, continue to essentially add fuel to the fire, playing up to ultranationalist revanchist forces in Kiev. It is very strange to listen for a whole year to prejudiced politicised attacks on Russia from the mediator.
Representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova commented on the absence of British Officials from the World Cup in Russia during a press conference in Moscow on Thursday.
“I cannot help but say that we are still deeply perplexed by the British officials’ reaction to the World Cup who endlessly link sport and politics and encourage the British media to do the same,” she said.
“It seems to me that they did not have enough of officials in the stands, particularly yesterday. Even according to media reports, I saw no one even from the British embassy, no official representative was present at the match,” she added.
Zakharova also commented on the progress in the military action in Syria where the province of Daraa has been liberated.
Talking about the Sea Breeze military exercises in the Black Sea, Zakharova described them as an “attempt to provoke tension once again, not only in the southeast of Ukraine, but also in the Black Sea as a whole.”
Servicemen from 19 NATO member countries take part in the drills in Odessa and Nikolaev regions as well as in some of the Black Sea's sea ranges. The Sea Breeze-2018 is scheduled to finish on 21 July.