It is absurd to blame Russia for a chemical attack on a former Russian spy and his daughter, said a Russian reporter in Moscow on Thursday.
British Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday announced a series of measures against Russia over its failure to respond to the demands by the British government to explain how a military-grade nerve agent was used in the spy attack.
These measures included the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats in a week, the freezing of Russian state assets in Britain, the suspension of all planned high-level bilateral contacts and the boycott by ministers and the royal family to attend the FIFA World Cup in Russia.
Pavel Krasnov, a reporter of Channel One, the first television channel to broadcast in the Russia, said it is absurd to blame Russia for the attack on the former Russian spy.
“Don’t you think it is too absurd that the Russian intelligence jailed him for more than four years and let him live in the UK for several years just to poison him with a drug evidently related with Russia a few days before the Russian presidential election and before the World Cup?” said Krasnov.
The reporter said the technology to produce the nerve agent that poisoned the spy had already been owned by the United States.
“The Uzbek factory which had produced this drug was demolished during the destruction of chemical weapons.”
“The Americans dismantled the factory and they took all the equipment, documents and spare drugs. The Americans surely own such drugs and the British may have them. Then what is the problem given these clear facts? Who committed the case and for what purposes?” said Krasnov.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Thursday that Britain had refused to cooperate with Russia “on the fulfillment of its duties as a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention,” adding that Moscow will soon take retaliatory measures against Britain regarding the spy attack row.
The London-Moscow row started following the murder attempt on former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Britain’s southwestern city of Salisbury.
Britain claims the father-daughter pair was exposed to a nerve agent and Russia is responsible for the act, which Moscow denies.
