The official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, on Wednesday, August 12, in an interview with the radio station “Moscow Speaks”, commented on the curses of the head of the department, Sergei Lavrov, during a press conference of the heads of the diplomatic departments of Russia and Saudi Arabia.

The interlocutor said that she was at the press conference and did not hear any rude words from Lavrov’s lips. “A man coughed, I don’t know what he had. I didn’t hear anything, and I have no comments about what was there in the background or anything else in parallel,” Zakharova said.

According to her, everything that Lavrov said is in the transcript. “And commenting on rustles, coughs, and some other interjections, this has nothing to do with the topic of negotiations,” concluded the representative of the foreign policy department.

Kommersant, in turn, found two possible explanations for this behavior of the minister. The publication indicates that a minute before the obscene phrase, Lavrov took his phone out of his pocket and read the message he received. “That is, we can assume that his reaction to the text of the message was so emotional,” the newspaper notes.

Kommersant associates the second version with Lavrov’s dislike for intrusive photographers, “who try to catch him in not the most “photogenic” moments.” “It is possible that such a moment, according to the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry, arose at the press conference: a few seconds before the sensational remark, Mr. Lavrov was just adjusting his glasses and rubbing his forehead, and the photographers began to take pictures of him,” the publication writes, noting that at this moment the frequent clicks of photographic shutters can be heard.

Russia Today TV channel published the full recording of the press conference. On it, Foreign Minister Lavrov reads the message, adjusts his glasses, rubs his forehead, and then swears from 39:45 to 41:10.

The Foreign Ministry commented on Lavrov’s abuse