Oct 20 (Portal) – Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday welcomed the departure of British Prime Minister Liz Truss, saying she was a disgrace to a leader who would be remembered for her ‘catastrophic illiteracy’.
“Britain has never seen such disgrace from a prime minister,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a social media post.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev tweeted in English: “Bye, bye @trussliz, congrats to lattuce,” referring to British tabloid Daily Star’s days-long livestream of whether Truss’s ailing prime minister could last of a salad would survive.
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Truss’ resignation drew extensive and cheerful coverage on Russian state television. A guest on the flagship political talk show Time Will Tell said Truss possessed the three qualities needed to succeed in British politics: “stupidity, arrogance and belligerence”.
Truss has been the target of scathing comments from Moscow since her visit in February as part of a futile effort by Western politicians to stave off a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zakharova’s reference to illiteracy seems to refer to this trip when Truss was British Foreign Secretary. At a meeting with Russia’s veteran Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, she appeared to confuse two regions of Russia with Ukraine, drawing derision from Russian media.
Russian officials viewed Truss’s premiership with trepidation from the start and reveled in her numerous gaffes. Upon her appointment in September, Lavrov said Truss didn’t know how to compromise and asked how the British leader could say she didn’t know if French President Emmanuel Macron was a “friend or foe”.
Zakharova on Thursday also mocked Truss’ high-profile photoshoot in Estonia last year, where she donned an anti-aircraft jacket and helmet to ride in a tank during a visit to British troops stationed in the Baltic country.
Moscow-London relations were at their lowest in decades, even before Russia invaded Ukraine after the 2018 poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in the British city of Salisbury.
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Portal reporting; Adaptation by Guy Faulconbridge and Mark Trevelyan
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