As Zakharova wrote on her Facebook, the journalist said that during a visit to Latin America "a few years ago, Putin said that there could not be a vacuum between the two Americas and if Washington was not going to fill it up, then Russia would do it."
The Foreign Ministry found out that the British journalist was referring to the press conference of Putin and the former President of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, on April 2, 2010. Then Grant himself asked Putin about the bridges between the continents and the military-technical cooperation between Russia and Venezuela.
According to Zakharova, answering a question, Putin said “not at all what was re-told by the British in Havana”.
“When I asked why today at the press conference, the meaning of the quotation was grossly distorted, the British journalist replied that the translators are guilty, who in 2010, apparently, did not translate Putin so well,” she said.
At the same time, the Foreign Ministry established that the statement about vacuums was not made by Putin in 2010, but by the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo - in 2019 in Chile.
“Well, the correspondent of the royal television channel was just a little mistaken. He attributed the quotation of the US Secretary of State to the President of Russia. The words remembered everything correctly - well done. But everything else is mixed up, ”said Zakharova.
She also recalled that earlier the British Foreign Ministry did not let RT and Sputnik to a conference on media freedom and reliability of information, accusing the Russian media of “disinformation”.
“Gentlemen of the British censors, pay attention to the fakes that are being spread by the correspondents of your own, British media. And next time, consider whether the Air Force should be allowed into your wonderful anti-misinformation conferences, ”she wrote.
Earlier, the Foreign Ministry called the refusal of London to accredit RT and Sputnik propaganda attack.