Force Majeure

The measured tempo of Russian-Swedish relations has encountered force majeure. First Secretary of trade and economic department at the Embassy of the Kingdom of Sweden to the Russian Federation became embroiled in a situation which in the language of diplomatic relations is called “activities incompatible with diplomatic status”. As a rule, this florid wording conceals commonplace espionage, but in this case all is even funnier. The high-ranking diplomat is accused of contraband tights trade.

The measured tempo of Russian-Swedish relations has encountered force majeure. First Secretary of trade and economic department at the Embassy of the Kingdom of Sweden to the Russian Federation became embroiled in a situation which in the language of diplomatic relations is called “activities incompatible with diplomatic status”. As a rule, this florid wording conceals commonplace espionage, but in this case all is even funnier. The high-ranking diplomat is accused of contraband tights trade.

The diplomat turned out quite a good businessman and arranged delivery of hosiery from Belarus to Moscow. It should be noted that Belarusian goods are in good demand in Russia which ensured a ready sale for the benefit of the enterprising diplomat. Each week Fors personally went to Belarus, bought up tights wholesale and, having diplomatic immunity, transported them without difficulty and free of duty to Russia where they were successfully resold.

Andres Martin Fors is 35. From August 2007 he held the post of the First Secretary of trade and economic department at the Embassy of the Kingdom of Sweden to Russia. The agents of the Directorate for Combating Economic Crimes didn’t go into details (i.e. how they figured diplomat-smuggler out). At the same time, according to Aleksey Gnatyuk, head of the First Branch of Economic Crime Department over Southwest Administrative District of Moscow: “For the reason that this person has diplomatic immunity we could not detain him, so we handed over all documents and case materials to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation”.

In its turn, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs considers such activities of the Swedish diplomat to be a direct violation of the 42^nd clause of Convention of Vienna 1980. “A diplomatic agent is not allowed to trade or practise a profession for personal profit in the country of residence. The Swedish party has made a decision to discharge Mr Fors from employment at the Swedish Embassy in Moscow. So far, he has already left the territory of the Russian Federation,” noted Nikolai Sandros, head of the division for diplomatic corps residence under the department of state protocol at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.

So far, the Swedish party hasn’t commented upon the activities of Mr Fors, yet Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs voiced the hope that this funny story with “tights diplomat” would not plague the relations between the two states.

Some years ago a scandalous story happened to the official of the Czech Embassy in Belarus who was accused of pedophilia. The evidence was the operational footage filmed by the agents of the Committee for State Security. Each similar case is widely discussed in the press though, by tradition, western mass media blame Russian and Belarusian authorities for frame-up. However, the point is probably not in “secret services” but that in pursuit of the facts damning antidemocratic activities of Moscow and Minsk western countries long ago stopped to watch over the cleanliness of their workers and legality of their acts.