MOSCOW, June 26. /TASS/. The possible departure of Russia’s Ambassador to the US is determined on a regular basis, and no spontaneity is possible here, Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Monday.
"Foreign reporters have been writing and calling me the whole night, demanding (in the proper sense of the word) to confirm ‘[Sergey] Kislyak’s departure from Washington in July.’ As they said, ex-US Ambassador to Russia [Michael] McFaul has been telling everyone about it," the diplomat said in a Facebook post.
Zakharova reiterated that the decision on the ambassadors’ return or appointment is taken by the Russian president.
"This is done routinely right after a new ambassador is appointed. There are exceptions, when for some reasons the ambassador leaves the post before a new ambassador is appointed [when diplomatic ties are broken off or downgraded and in case of health problems or death]," she noted.
"In this case, anything concerning departures of Russian ambassadors in various countries is done on a regular basis."
"If a decision to appoint a new ambassador to the US [a whole procedure that takes a few months to be completed, so no spontaneity is possible here] is taken, then Sergey Kislyak, who has worked in the US for nine years, will go down in history of bilateral relations as a person who did all that was possible for their development even in the hardest periods," Zakharova stressed.
"The same can’t be said for McFaul, who shamefully ran away from Moscow, having failed not just all possible diplomatic tasks, protocol meetings and passwords, but even this strange mission assigned by the [Barack] Obama administration to him."