Belgian Scholar Sees No Proof of Russia's Hand in Skripal Case

All that people trying to make sense of the Skripal poisoning have been given by the British authorities is a “highly likely” assumption about Russia’s alleged involvement without even waiting for the completion of an ongoing investigation.

Tanguy de Wilde, an international affairs expert and a Catholic University professor in Louvain, said that no evidence has so far been provided by the British authorities linking Moscow to last month’s nerve agent poisoning of the former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

“What makes the Skripal case so unusual is that it has not been settled by [the two countries’] intelligence agencies. Instead, the whole matter was brought up to a government level with an eye to making it public and prejudging the outcome of the probe. This gave the Russians every right to slam this type deliberate accusation, which was not backed up with any formal proof of Moscow’s involvement,” Tanguy De Wilde told Radio Premiere.

He added that “even though Russia responded by expelling European diplomats, it is not trying to break off contacts.”

“What [Russia] did was to scale down, maybe temporarily, the channels of communication in a symbolic gesture to show just how serious this whole crisis really is,” he noted.

Earlier this week a number of EU countries, as well as the US, Canada, Norway, Ukraine and several others, expelled 153 Russian diplomats in connection with the March 4 poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter with the A234 nerve agent that the British authorities say was developed in Russia.

Moscow has strongly denied any involvement and is already taking retaliatory measures sending home more than 150 Western diplomats and shutting down the US Consulate in St. Petersburg.

READ MORE: Scandal Over Skripal Might be Yet Another Gross Mistake by EU — Politician