Valery Solovey: "Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova is threatened with dismissal"

To the host’s question about why Zakharova’s strange and very unexpected initiative to speak at the debate with Navalny arose, Solovey answered that the Foreign Ministry’s speaker “was preparing for a long weekend” on April 30. The table-based “preparation” is a tradition and a custom in the state organizations, including the Foreign Ministry, says a former professor at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. And since, in the words of Solovey, “she is a lively lady in language and her thoughts are ahead of the braking centers”, it turned out to challenge Navalny. After that, she continued to prepare for the weekend all night. And then Zakharova’s statement was brought to the very top, where the immediate reaction came from: if she tries to come to a meeting with Navalny, she will be fired right there.

At the same time, as the political scientist said, the authorities are not afraid of Navalny. But they proceed from the fact that if they provide him with a platform, a discussion not with some Strelkov-Girkin, but with an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this will be perceived as a factor in the legitimation of Navalny.

In addition, Zakharova, according to Nightingale, is generally "extremely unhappy", and this is due to many questions that have the curators and special services in connection with the peculiarities of her behavior. Zakharova, for example, speaking of the possible introduction of exit visas for citizens of the Russian Federation, expressed the view of the elite on a social hierarchy in Russian society. With the growing discontent of the citizens during a pandemic, such statements only add the fuel to the fire of social discord.