Russian foreign ministry said Liz Truss was a disgrace of a prime minister who would be remembered for her “catastrophic illiteracy” and welcomed her departure on Thursday.
According to a post on social media by spokesperson for the foreign ministry Maria Zakharova, “Britain has never had such a disgrace of a prime minister.”
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev wrote on Twitter in English: “Bye, bye @trussliz, congrats to lettuce”, referring to the British Daily Star tabloid’s days-long livestream asking whether Truss’ troubled premiership would outlast the shelf-life of a lettuce.
State television in Russia enthusiastically and extensively covered Truss’ resignation. Truss, according to a guest on the venerable political chat program “Time Will Tell,” has the qualities of “Stupidity, Arrogance, and Belligerence,” which are necessary for success in British politics.
Since Truss traveled in February as part of an unsuccessful effort by Western leaders to prevent a Russian invasion of Ukraine, she has been the target of scathing remarks from Moscow.
The mention of illiteracy by Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the foreign ministry, appears to be a reference to that journey, when Truss was the British foreign minister. She appeared to mistake two districts of Russia for Ukraine at a meeting with Russia’s seasoned foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, prompting ridicule in Russian media.
From the beginning, Russian officials had negative opinions of Truss as premier, and they have taken great pleasure in all of her errors. When Truss was appointed in September, Lavrov criticized her for not being able to compromise and questioned how the British leader could claim to be unsure of Macron’s status as a “friend or foe” of France.
On Thursday, Zakharova also made fun of Truss’ well-publicized photo session in Estonia from the previous year, where she rode in a tank while donning a flak jacket and helmet during a visit to British troops stationed there.
Even before Russia invaded Ukraine, the 2018 poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in the British city of Salisbury had brought relations between Moscow and London to their lowest point in decades.
