The United States should “redirect” its efforts toward investigating the criminal sex ring allegations against rapper Diddy instead of seeking to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, Moscow’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said in an interview.
Maria Zakharova’s remarks came in response to bombshell federal U.S. racketeering and sex trafficking charges as well as a massive class-action lawsuit against Diddy, whose real name is Sean Combs.
“Perhaps the U.S. should step away from global issues for a second, forget about Russia, forget about the [International Criminal Court] and for once redirect all of its resources and all of its pompous exceptionalism towards themselves,” Zakharova told the Kremlin-funded broadcaster RT.
The ICC issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin in March 2023 for the unlawful deportations of Ukrainian children to Russia during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. is not a signatory to the court’s founding statute.
Moscow, which has been accused of deploying hybrid warfare tools against its adversaries in the West, has repeatedly railed against U.S. military aid to Ukraine and its far-reaching sanctions on Russia.
In a conspiracy-laden remark, Zakharova sought to implicate Washington’s political establishment in the Diddy sex scandal, arguing that it made the White House look “hypocritical” to countries like Russia and China.
“It was a coordinated operation, something like a mafia structure, that brought together people from show business, politics and government. They covered for each other [and] exchanged services,” Zakharova claimed without providing evidence.
“The police couldn’t have been unaware, the FBI must have known, the White House too — everyone knew,” she added.
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