As the diplomat wrote on Facebook, the material was published on November 2, while two weeks before the publication of the article, the Russian Foreign Ministry, at the request of the publication, sent explanations of how events developed on the day the American military attache left Moscow.
The Foreign Ministry commented that “five and a half hours before the originally scheduled take-off time, it was the air carrier that transferred the departure one hour later.” At the same time, the Russian side made every effort to minimize the delay.
The problems were due to the fact that the carrier did not properly draw up documents of foreign doctors who arrived by special board, who were mistakenly included in the crew.
Then it took 20 minutes to correct the documents. This did not delay the landing, which began 40 minutes before takeoff, and the takeoff was carried out five minutes earlier than announced.
“This is a fake: to have facts and not to publish them, to distort the materials of the source. Such material is a scandal. Forgery in its purest form, ”said Zakharova.
The representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs emphasized that the thesis about the alleged delay in the flight was reasonably refuted, however, the newspaper deliberately hid the chronology of events set forth in the commentary of the Russian Ministry, and also distorted the picture of what happened.
“The plane took off five minutes earlier than the time declared by the airline and approved by the services in the flight documents, which, in principle, makes the whole story of the deliberate delay of the flight meaningless!” - summed up Zakharova.
The diplomat also cited the commentary text of the Russian Foreign Ministry, which was sent to the publication on October 11.