On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador to the US Sergei Kislyak met with Trump in the Oval Office, in a meeting that was attended by only two photographers, one from each side, after the general press was denied accreditation to the event.
The Russian photojournalist, a TASS employee who regularly serves as Lavrov's personal photographer, took a series of photos. While the White House decided not to release its images of the meeting, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs published some of its photos on Twitter.
According to CNN, White House officials were unhappy with the publication of the photos, claiming they were "tricked."
On Thursday, Zakharova told the media that the release of the photos was no more than a demonstration of the Foreign Ministry's transparency regarding its meeting with the US President, and criticized CNN distorting the truth about the meeting.
"Do you know what would happen if Russia hadn't published official photos from this meeting yesterday? After some time, they would have been leaked to Congress and from there to CNN which would present them as 'secret evidence of collusion between the Russians and Trump,' the dates and circumstances of the meetings would be distorted, and the American public would again be deceived. Will someone please interview CNN and ask them what it's like to sink that low?" Zakharova said.
Ambassador Kislyak and President Trump / Посол С.Кисляк и Президент Д.Трамп pic.twitter.com/Ckkx2YL9KX
— Russia in USA 🇷🇺 (@RusEmbUSA) 10 мая 2017 г.
Writing on her Facebook page, Zakharova compared the reaction to the publication of photos from the meeting with Russia to that of Ukrainian Ambassador Pavlo Klimkin's meeting with Trump on Thursday.
"For days, the American media has been in hysterics about Russia's publication of photographs of Lavrov and Trump, refusing to reprint them from non-American sources. But with Klimkin the situation is exactly the opposite: touching the presidential table was forgiven, and the Ukrainian Embassy in the US was referred to as a source of photographic material. How pathetic their Russophobia is," Zakharova wrote, RIA Novosti reported.
Political analyst Vladimir Bruter of Russia's International Institute of Humanitarian and Political Studies told Radio Sputnik that by attacking Russia, the mainstream US media seeks a scapegoat for the election of Donald Trump and the rejection of the US establishment that Trump's victory represents.
"I think there are three reasons: firstly, the general stance of these media, which are always looking for some strange news that they think is connected with Trump. This is all a part of 'fake news,' as Trump says, a 'fake news machine' that prints and distributes such stories."
"The second reason is that they are all obsessed with Russophobia, Russophobia and spy mania are natural topics for them. The third reason is really specific: some agreements were made during Lavrov's meetings with Tillerson and Trump, and now they want to attack all that in order to discredit and prevent the implementation of these agreements."
"Russia is a country that represents everything these people, the media and the people who stand behind them, don't like. For them, Russia is a symbol of disobedience to America and they believe this disobedience should always be punished. It's actually not even spy mania, it's the invention of stupid things. It makes absolutely no sense, it's just the creation of false images with the help of the media," Bruter said.
On Friday, the Russian Union of Journalists called on US media not to lose sight of the professionalism that they have upheld in the past, amid the controversy surrounding the photos' publication.
"We are urging our US colleagues to maintain sound judgment and to remain reasonable, we are asking them to remember high the professional standards that their colleagues always demonstrated in the past, [we are] hoping that despite any political situation whatever it is they would stay true to their profession and to journalists' solidarity," the union's statement read.
