Russia Claims Vote Theft at Eurovision Contest

Russia's foreign minister has called Azerbaijan's failure to award any points to Russia's entry in the Eurovision song contest "outrageous". Sergei Lavrov said the points had been "stolen" from Russia's Dina Garipova. "That 10 points were stolen from our contestant during the Eurovision 2013 contest does not make us happy regarding the organization of the event," Lavrov said at a joint press conference with his Azerbaijan counterpart, Elmar Mammadyarov. He warned that "the outrageous action at Eurovision regarding the Russian contestant will not go unanswered." Azerbaijan says it cannot explain how it awarded no points to Russia, when Garipova came second in its phone poll. Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev has ordered an inquiry into how its votes for Russia apparently went missing. And the country's Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov, sitting next to Mr Lavrov at a press conference in Moscow, called it a "detective story". He said records from all three of Azerbaijan's mobile phone operators show that Azeris awarded Ukraine's entry the most votes, followed by Russia's. "Where did the votes go? How did they disappear? This, of course, is a question for our public television," he said. The president of Azerbaijan has ordered an investigation as to why the Russian got no votes, which are submitted by viewers in text messages. Garipova finished fifth with her ballad "What If," coming in 17 points behind fourth-place Norway.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22609523
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/05/21/russian-foreign-minister-lavrov-eurovision-votes-stolen-azerbaijan/2345503/
http://www.echo.msk.ru/blog/echomsk/1078888-echo/ (video)