Moscow Blasts Britain’s Effort to Blame Russia for 2018 Poisonings as UK Charges Third Suspect

The March 2018 poisoning of the Skripal family, and London's claims that Russian intelligence was behind the plot, chilled relations between Russia and the UK to a low unseen since the Cold War. Moscow staunchly denies any involvement in the incident, pointing to a large number of inconsistencies with the British government's version of events.

Moscow "strongly condemns" the latest attempts by London to blame Russia for the 2018 Salisbury poisonings of former Russian intelligence agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.

Speaking at a briefing on Tuesday, the spokeswoman accused London of using the Salisbury case as an "instrument of pressure" and reiterated that UK authorities have yet to agree to a joint investigation into the case proposed by Moscow over three years ago.

"For over two years now, British authorities have been using the Salisbury incident to deliberately complicate our bilateral relations. The authorities continue to use the Skripal case as an instrument of pressure against our country, ramping up anti-Russian attitudes in British society and constructing this Russophobic concept which is then released into the country's media," Zakharova said.

"Notwithstanding numerous appeals from the Russian side and calls for a responsible dialogue, London continues to refuse substantive discussion on and a joint investigation into this incident, as a result of which, it's important to recall, Russian citizens were the victims," the spokeswoman added.

Zakharova offered a guess as to why Britain's fresh claims related to the Salisbury case were surfacing now, pointing to the planned meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and UK Foreign Secretary Elizabeth Truss on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

Earlier on Tuesday, British Interior Minister Priti Patel told Parliament that the government "will continue to respond extremely robustly to the enduring and significant threat from the Russian state" in the wake of the 2018 poisoning after a third suspect was identified in the case.

Calling the Salisbury events "an utterly, utterly reckless act" and a "shameless and deliberate attack," Patel said that although the UK "respect[s] the people of Russia...we will do whatever it takes, everywhere it takes, to keep our country safe."

The interior minister indicated that the UK would "take every possible step" to detain the 'Russian military intelligence operatives' it suspects of involvement in the 2018 poisonings if they ever left Russia.

"As was made clear in 2018, should any of these individuals ever travel outside Russia, we will work with our international partners and take every possible step to detain them and extradite them to face justice," she said.

Third Suspect

Patel's comments come in the wake of confirmation by the UK Counter Terrorism Policing network earlier on Tuesday that it had authorised charges against one "Sergei Fedotov," a third suspect in the suspected Salisbury poisoning attack on former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

"Charges have been authorised against a third person in relation to the ongoing investigation into the Salisbury Novichok attack," police said in a statement, referring to the nerve agent the UK claims was used in the 2018 poisonings. "As a result of...continued inquiries, a third man known as 'Sergei Fedotov' was identified and evidence related to this individual was presented to the Crown Prosecution Service," the statement added.

Police said Fedotov could be charged with attempted murder and the possession and use of a chemical weapon, and suspect that this name is an alias for one "Denis Sergeev" – an officer in Russian military intelligence.

Fedotov, aka Sergeev, is accused of having acted with the other two suspects, "Alexander Petrov" and "Ruslan Boshirov" (also Russian spies, according to the UK), to plan the attack on the Skripals.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Tuesday that he has sent Russia a formal request to extradite the three suspects to Britain for prosecution. London has also confirmed that Fedotov had been put on Interpol's Wanted List.

UK's Leaky 'Poisoning' Claims

On 4 March 2018, Sergei and Yulia Skripal were discovered unconscious on a park bench outside a Salisbury shopping centre. UK authorities suspected that they had been poisoned, and then-British Prime Minister Theresa May almost immediately blamed Moscow before any formal investigation began, alleging that Russian military intelligence agents used a military-grade nerve agent known as Novichok, or A234, against the family.

Moscow denied the claims and offered to cooperate in the investigation but was blocked from doing so. Russian officials were also blocked from contacting the Skripals, despite their status as Russian nationals. The Russian Embassy in London later accused UK authorities of holding the family against their will.

Tensions over the poisoning claims sparked a series of tit-for-tat escalations, including expulsions of diplomats and new sanctions against Moscow by Britain's American allies.

Yulia and Sergei Skripal were said to have recovered from the poisoning incident in April and May 2018, respectively, and according to UK authorities and media, were whisked away to an MI5 safe house before leaving for New Zealand two years later. Viktoria Skripal, Sergei's niece and closest family member in Russia, has said that she did not have any information to corroborate these claims. The father and daughter have not been seen or heard from since Yulia's brief video address to media in May 2018.

Russia has pointed to a number of inconsistencies with the UK's version of events in the Skripal poisoning saga, starting with the question of what motive Moscow might have to target the family. Sergei Skripal was convicted of high treason by a Russian court in 2006 for passing secrets to UK intelligence and imprisoned, but received a pardon from the Russian government and allowed to immigrate to Britain as part of a spy swap programme in 2010. In 2018, prominent anti-war activist and former UK lawmaker George Galloway suggested that if the Russian state truly wanted to kill Skripal, it could have done so while the ex-spy was in prison.

Leonid Rink, the creator of the Novichok group of chemical weapons, has dismissed suggestions that his nerve agent was used in the recent high-profile poisonings – including that of Russian opposition vlogger Alexei Navalny. Last year, Rink told Sputnik that Novichok was created as a weapon of mass destruction, not to eliminate a single individual, and that it was potent enough to kill a human being within ten minutes.

Russia eliminated the last of its Soviet-era chemical weapons stocks, mostly artillery shells for use in a WWIII scenario, in 2017 under the supervision of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.