Anti-Russian statements by foreign politicians need adequate response

Anti-Russian statements of foreign politicians must get an adequate response from Russia, the chairman of the State Duma lower house’s international affairs committee Alexey Pushkov said on Monday, referring to recent words of the Latvian foreign minister comparing Russia with the Third Reich.
"I don’t believe that foreign politicians can be allowed to talk nonsense without any consequences for them, for example as concerns their access to Russia at the very minimum," he told Govorit Moskva (Moscow Speaking) radio.
Response measures could also extended to the country whose official position this politician represents, he added. "If this person officially represents the state, the state must be responsible for his words," he explained, specifying that this was his personal point of view.
"When the foreign minister of Latvia allows such statements, he must be well aware that this may entail moves on our side that will deal a major blow to interests of Latvia — economic, trade or some others,"Pushkov added.
"It seems to me we must respond, and not necessarily in statements, but in some other moves that show that words have their price," he added.
He also dismissed as stupidity if not as a mean-spirited distortion of facts, statements that Russia was facing a standpoint shared by the whole world.
He said in this situation, "35 countries supporting sanctions against Russia and either being NATO member states or dreaming to join it, like Montenegro" were passed off as ‘the whole world’.
Pushkov reminded the audience that there were about 200 states in the world, some of them ‘quite powerful’.
"That is why saying that Russia stands against the whole world or the whole world stands against Russia does not represent the facts, to put it mildly," he said.