‘Overwhemingly likely’ Putin ordered spy attack in Salisbury – British FM


Russian president Vladimir Putin might have personally ordered the murder of former double agent Sergei Skripal, UK Government believes.

“We think it overwhelmingly likely that it was his [Putin’s] decision to direct the use of a nerve agent on the streets of the UK, on the streets of Europe, for the first time since the second world war. That is why we are at odds with Russia,” Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said during Friday’s visit to the Battle of Britain Bunker museum with his Polish counterpart Jacek Czaputowicz.

On March 4, Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yuliya, 33, were found unconscious at a shopping mall in the English town of Salisbury. The two were taken to hospital in critical condition. The were reportedly poisoned following exposure to an unknown substance.

British experts identified the weapon used in Salisbury as a fourth-generation nerve agent known as Novichok. It was developed by Russian scientists in the 1970s.

“There is a reason for choosing Novichok. In its blatant Russian-ness, the nerve agent sends a signal to all who may be thinking of dissent in the intensifying repression of Putin’s Russia. The message is clear: We will find you, we will catch you, we will kill you – and though we will deny it with lip-curling scorn, the world will know beyond doubt that Russia did it,” Johnson said in his article written for The Washington Post.

In response, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that bringing up Putin in the context of the case was ‘shocking and unforgivable in terms of diplomatic behaviour’.

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On Monday, British Prime Minister Theresa May gave Russia time until midnight on Tuesday to explain why a Soviet-era nerve agent was used in the attack. But Moscow said it would not give any explanation until it has access to the evidential materials (nerve agent samples) of the Skripal case. Moreover, Maria Zakharova, Spokeswoman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, called May’s speech a ‘circus show in the British parliament’ and dropped a threatening hint.

Sergei Skripal was arrested by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) in December 2004. An investigation revealed that back in 1995, he was recruited by the British intelligence to provide information constituting state secrets. In August 2006, the Moscow District Military Court sentenced Skripal to 13 years in a maximum security correctional facility, also stripping him of his military rank and state awards.

On July 9, 2010, when Russia and the United States carried out a spy swap, Skripal was handed over to the US alongside three other convicts, while Moscow received ten Russian citizens in return.

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