International
NERVE-AGENT ATTACK: Russia poised to strike back at Britain
Authorities in Russia are reportedly set to expel British diplomats in retaliation for UK’s Prime Minister Theresa May’s decision to kick out 23 Russian diplomats over the nerve-agent attack on former spy Sergei Skripal and his 33-year-old daughter Yulia.
The relationship between London and Moscow has crashed to a post-Cold War low over the attack involving a military-grade nerve agent on English soil.
When asked by a Reuters reporter in the Kazakh capital Astana if Moscow would expel British diplomats, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov smiled and said: “We will, of course.”
In a related development, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated Moscow’s line that there was no “clear evidence” for any Russian involvement in the attack, RIA reported.
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UK Prime Minister Theresa May had pointed accussing fingers at Russia for being responsible for the attack on Skripal and his daughter.
According to May, it is “highly likely” that Russia was responsible for the condition of the double agent and his daughter who were both poisoned with a military grade nerve agent developed by Moscow.
In her comments while speaking at the House of Commons on Monday, May called the assassination attempt a “reckless and despicable act”.
Britain’s foreign minister, Boris Johnson also claimed that it is “highly likely” that Russian President Vladimir Putin himself ordered the nerve-agent attack on the spy.
Johnson said the attack on Skripal and his daughter with a military-grade nerve toxin was most likely ordered by Putin himself.
“Our quarrel is with Putin’s Kremlin, and with his decision – and we think it overwhelmingly likely that it was his 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,” Johnson said.
“We have nothing against the Russians themselves. There is to be no Russophobia as a result of what is happening.”
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