Maria Zakharova, the Russian foreign ministry diplomat has lashed out at certain Western media publications for their dubious claims of Russia’s supposed invasion of Ukraine. Zakharova, who is the Director of the Information and Press Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, asked the western media to announce the schedule of Russian ‘invasions’ for the coming year so that Russian diplomats can plan their vacations accordingly.
Maria Zakharova wrote on her telegram channel, “A request to US and British disinformation media: Bloomberg, The New York Times, The Sun, etc. – announce the schedule of our ‘invasions’ for the coming year, I would like to plan a vacation,” This came after certain British news outlets like The Sun and The Mirror published that the ‘invasion of Ukraine’ was to happen at 3:00 AM on February 16 citing American intelligence data. Bloomberg had earlier reported on February 04, with a headline “Russia invades Ukraine” for which it had to apologise with a statement on publishing error.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Russia had earlier issued a statement condemning the ‘fake news campaign’ by Western media outlets as a result of a ‘collusion between the Western governments and media aimed at fanning tensions over Ukraine’ to serve their geopolitical interests.
Commenting on Zakharova’s statements, Dmitry Peskov, Press secretary of the President of Russia asserted that Ukrainians should set alarms and see for themselves that such statements are false.
Meanwhile, tensions continue to escalate over the Ukrainian border as President Volodymyr Zelensky has claimed that there are no signs of Russian withdrawal yet. However, Russia has won the game in narrative by mincing no words while slamming fake and fear-mongering reports by the Western media.