Norway regrets incident: consul "hates Russians"

Norway regrets the incident
Consul “Hates Russians” – Moscow demands departure

08/04/2022, 06:12 pm

Elizabeth Ellingson abuses at a hotel reception in Murmansk, Russia. The Norwegian diplomat’s insults against the Russians are captured by a surveillance camera and eventually shared on the Internet. Oslo is shocked. Moscow demands results.

The Russian government has called for his departure after a Norwegian diplomat made derogatory remarks about Russians. The Russian Foreign Ministry said it was “impossible” for Consul Elizabeth Ellingson to stay in the country. Ellingson previously showed a surveillance video at a Russian hotel reception, where she declared that she “hates Russians”. The Russian Foreign Ministry had already summoned the Norwegian ambassador Rune Reisland over the incident and protested Ellingsson’s “derogatory anti-Russian remarks”.

A surveillance video from a hotel reception in Murmansk was broadcast on the Internet over the weekend. It is not clear when this video is from. Ellingson said: “I hate Russians. Just give me a room. I’m used to cleaning rooms, I come from Scandinavia.” She was reportedly upset about waiting for her room to be ready.

She was so upset that she made many insults about the Russians. “I think you guys are disgusting and just a shame in general,” she is quoted as saying by the Austrian news portal “heute.at”, According to the report, the Russian Foreign Ministry called the incident a “reprehensible act of hatred and xenophobia”.

Norway’s foreign ministry had distanced itself from the incident over the weekend and was “deeply sorry”. A spokesman said the ambassador had been informed of the incident and had revoked Ellingson’s visa. The diplomat’s remarks come at a time of tension between Russia and the West over the Russian invasion of Ukraine, to which Europe and the US have responded with a series of sanctions against Moscow.