Amesbury Incident: UK Has a 'Tough Task' to Convince EU They Matter - Journalist

Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess, were found unconscious on 30th June after falling ill that morning in their house in Amesbury, which is located close to the town of Salisbury, where Sergei and Yulia Skripal were allegedly poisoned last March.

According to the British police, the pair was exposed to the nerve agent after a contact with a contaminated item. Both Amesbury and Salisbury are located close to the military's Porton-Down laboratory, which conducted the research in both cases. Sputnik spoke to investigative journalist Alexander Nekrassov about the case in Salisbury and Amesbury.

Sputnik: What do you make of the story unfolding in Amesbury, is the case being used as a political pawn by the UK government?

Alexander Nekrassov: It is very difficult to evaluate what is going on because of the absurdity of the situation.

First of all there is no proof of anything, secondly there is no proof of the previous incident having any links to Russia and that is where it is odd when the government trying to project this second poisoning as if it’s all part of the game Russia started in Salisbury 4 months ago.

It doesn’t stick, it doesn’t work, it’s not convincing, they know it themselves, there is a certain desperation made in the statements by politicians. But what is most amazing for me is of the coverage by the British media of this incident, which is quite remarkable if you consider that without any evidence have started to peddle the idea of Russian involvement right from the start.

Sputnik: Does this call in to question the security services and their clean-up of the area for example the bio security at Porton Down?

Alexander Nekrassov: As for the clean-up I can’t understand the logic behind this argument.

First of all these nerve agents and the experts say they disintegrate very quickly, they do not last, so when they were trying to clean the area where the Skripals were walking about having been poisoned for many hours as I understand, no one could understand what they were cleaning. 

The most absurd thing was there were people in protective clothing while people around them were not protected.

Sputnik: What do you make of the timing of this as the Skripal case was 100 days before, now this during the world cup where Russia has been receiving great praise for how the tournament is going?

Alexander Nekrassov: Unfortunately for Theresa May’s government, the timing of this incident reveals the true purpose of this whole narrative.

It comes when her government is in a dire situation when it comes to Brexit, the talks have all but collapsed, Theresa May’s involvement in this is basically a disaster.

Now also the NATO summit is coming up and Britain has a tough task there to convince the Europeans that they matter, again they need something to say that they need to be in the system and in this European army and so on.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of Alexander Nekrassov and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Sputnik.