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Updated 2.38pm
MOSCOW HAS CALLED Britain’s accusations of its involvement in the poisoning of a former double agent an attempt to “discredit” Russia and vowed to retaliate against any sanctions.
“The incident is yet another dirty attempt by British authorities to discredit Russia,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that threats of sanctions “will not be left without a response.”
The Guardian reports that Russia has now summoned the UK’s ambassador to the foreign ministry in Moscow following the events.
Theresa May had earlier given the Russian ambassador in London a deadline of tonight to explain whether the poisoning of Sergei Skripal was a direct act by the Russian state against the UK, or whether it “lost control” of the nerve agent.
Yesterday, she said that it was “highly likely” Russia was responsible for the attack last Sunday – claims that were described as “unfounded” by Russia.
May spoke in the House of Commons yesterday about the poisoning of Sergei Skripal (66) and his daughter Yulia (33) in Salisbury. The pair were found in critical condition in the town on 4 March. A police detective who came in contact with them is in serious but stable condition.
At a press conference today, the UK’s counterterrorism chief Neil Basu appealed for any members of the public who had seen Sergei Skripal’s red BMW – registration HD09 WAO – on Sunday 4 March to get in touch. Police are also seeking dash cam footage.
He said that Skripal’s daughter arrived at Heathrow from Moscow at 2.40pm on Saturday 3 March. The next day, Sunday 4 March, the pair were in the Salisbury Sainsbury’s car park at 1.40pm. They then went to the Bishop’s Mill pub, followed by the restaurant Zizzi at 2.20pm. They remained at the restaurant until 3.35pm.
A member of the public contacted the emergency services at 4.15pm and the pair were found on a bench outside Zizzi restaurant “in an extremely serious condition”.
Police are combing through CCTV footage and the public has told that there will be a “great deal of police activity in and around the city”.
38 people have been seen in relation to the incident and 34 have been discharged (the remaining four include Skripal, his daughter, and a police officer).
Skripal and his daughter are both in a critical but stable condition.
Pressure
The British PM said that Russia must also “provide full and complete disclosure” of its Novichok program to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the oversight body for the international chemical weapons convention.
The PM was speaking after she chaired a National Security Council meeting to hear the latest evidence in the case. She has been under pressure to hit Russia with sanctions, diplomatic expulsions and other measures in response to the poisoning, the latest in a string of mysterious mishaps to befall Russians in Britain in recent years.
The BBC says that the UK’s government emergencies committee, Cobra, is to meet to discuss the case.
May said yesterday that Britain would consider tough action if Russia’s explanation is inadequate, though she didn’t give details.
She said Britain would be prepared to take “much more extensive measures” than the expulsions and limited sanctions imposed after the death of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned by drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium in London in 2006.
“We will not tolerate such a brazen attempt to murder innocent civilians on our soil,” May added.
‘An outrage’
The White House said the use of the nerve agent “is an outrage” but wasn’t ready to say that Russia was responsible.
Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders called the poisoning “reckless, indiscriminate and irresponsible,” adding that the US stands by its ally.
British opposition lawmakers are urging the adoption of a version of the United States’ Magnitsky Act, a law allowing authorities to ban or seize the assets of individuals guilty of human rights abuses. It is named for Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who died in a Russian prison after exposing a $230 million fraud involving organized crime and a Russian government official in 2008.
Critics of the British government say the UK’s response to Russian wrongdoing has been muted because London’s property market and financial sector are magnets for billions in Russian money.
Many see echoes between the Skripal case and the killing of Litvinenko, which a British inquiry concluded was the work of the Russian state, probably on the orders of President Vladimir Putin.
The Kremlin has denied involvement in Litvinenko’s death, and it dismissed claims it was behind the attack on the Skripals.
‘Nothing to do with Russia’
Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Sergei Skripal worked for British intelligence and was poisoned on British soil, and therefore the incident “has nothing to do with Russia, let alone the Russian leadership”.
Skripal was a Russian military intelligence officer when he was recruited to spy for Britain in the 1990s. He was jailed in Russia in 2006 for revealing state secrets before being freed in a spy swap in 2010. He had settled in Salisbury, 140 kilometres southwest of London.
Almost 200 troops, including soldiers trained in chemical warfare and decontamination, have been deployed to Salisbury to assist the police investigation into where the nerve agent came from and how it was delivered.
British officials have said the risk to the public is low, but urged people who visited the Zizzi restaurant or Mill pub, where the Skripals went before their collapse, to wash their clothes as a precaution. Some have questioned why it took health authorities a week to issue the advice.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson cast the poisoning of Skripal as part of a “certain unleashing of activity” by Russia that the United States is struggling to understand. He warned that the poisoning would “certainly trigger a response.”
Tillerson said he didn’t yet know whether Russia’s government knew of the attack with a military-grade nerve agent, but that one way or another, “it came from Russia.”
He said it was “almost beyond comprehension” why a state actor would deploy such a dangerous substance in a public place in a foreign country where others could be exposed.
“I cannot understand why anyone would take such an action. But this is a substance that is known to us and does not exist widely,” Tillerson told reporters as he flew from Nigeria to Washington. “It is only in the hands of a very, very limited number of parties.”
May said that Novichock, the nerve agent used against ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, was developed by the Soviet Union near the end of the Cold War.
Tillerson, who spoke yesterday by phone with British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, said he’s grown “extremely concerned” about Russia, noting that he spent most of the first year of the Trump administration trying to solve problems and narrow differences with the Kremlin. He said after a year of trying, “we didn’t get very far.”
“Instead what we’ve seen is a pivot on their part to be more aggressive,” Tillerson said.
And this is very, very concerning to me and others that there seems to be a certain unleashing of activity that we don’t fully understand what the objective behind that is.
He said if the poisoning turned out to be the work of Russia’s government, “this is a pretty serious action.”
“It certainly will trigger a response. I’ll leave it at that,” Tillerson said.
Tillerson, whose relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin dates back to his days as Exxon Mobil’s CEO, has sought to work with Russia on narrow areas where the two countries could find common ground, such as a cease-fire in southwestern Syria that has largely held since last year.
But those efforts have had diminishing results. Tillerson’s efforts to persuade Moscow to stop propping up Syrian President Bashar Assad and to pull out of Crimea have yielded little to no progress.
At the same time, President Donald Trump’s critics regularly accuse his administration of failing to stand up to the Kremlin, especially over Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Russia hawks in Congress are particularly miffed that the State Department so far has declined to use a new law letting the US slap sanctions on foreign companies or governments that do business with Russia’s defence or intelligence sectors.
Those powers took effect in January, but so far nobody has been punished.
- Additional reporting © AFP, 2018
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Jesus Christ, hopefully he makes a full recovery, lot of people are driving like crazy nowadays.
@Anthony Burke: How do you know this accident had anything to do with driving standards?
@Anthony Burke: A bit harsh to start shifting the blame when you haven’t a clue of the circumstances.
@John O Brien: typical defensive attitude. Put it this way – it doesn’t matter if it was a pedestrian, cyclist, dog or other car that was in the way, no-one should be driving at such a speed that they can’t stop for any of these, especially when there are no cars on the road. If a child is airlifted to hospital after “a collision between two vehicles”, you can be sure the other vehicle wasn’t paying enough attention.
@John O Brien: agree! I see 11 year old cyclists speeding every day! NOT!
speedy recovery little man!
@Brynþór Patrekursson: so if the car was driving 50km on a 50km road and a person/child/cat/dog came out in front of your bumper it’s the drivers fault for not being able to stop on time?
Quick and full recovery for the child and hopefully the driver is ok too(if not at fault).
@Anthony Burke: I was going to my local shop today in a rural spot and a ups driver nearly came up on the path. He was going way too fast in a village with a 50km,ph limit. Must have been been going 90/100 . He was on 2 wheels going around the bend.
@Aviationdub: It could be, if 50 km was not an appropriate speed to be driving at, given the conditions. E.g, driving past a football match, funeral, etc just after the event has ended. Obviously, the other cyclist, pedestrian, etc has some responsibility (unless they’re 5 years old). If a person parachutes down in front of the car, saying the driver was at fault would be unreasonable.
@Aviationdub: yes, you are supposed to anticipate hazards. You slow down on bends and anywhere you can’t see a good distance ahead.
Also pedestrians have been crazy on the roads recently. Well the country roads, they are walking in the middle of the road sometimes in twos and threes very dangerous. They probably think they’re ok as there is not much traffic on the roads but one car can do a lot of damage to a pedestrian.
@lunadoran: perhaps drivers should drive to the conditions and the road. Those twos and threes could just as easily be a person with a double buggy, an oncoming tractor, a person on a horse, etc ……. Saying 2 or 3 pedestrians are dangerous is poor show for driver
@Eoin Scanlon: Walking 2 or 3 abreast on a country road is poor judgement. Maybe you should think of any poor person who rounds a bend and has insufficient time to avoid a collision. It’s not always the driver’s fault.
@lunadoran: Jeesus! – they’re supposed to be on the road. No excuses during a pandemic where cars are down 95% and everyone knows pedestrians and cyclists have to keep bigger distances apart. Far, far, too many unnecessary journeys by arrogant individuals, especially in rural areas. And arrogant individuals mixed with cars result in injuries like this.
@lunadoran: Slow down! Where are these people supposed to walk? Their are no pavements on a lot of rural roads.
@lunadoran: its actually safer to cycle /walk in the middle of the road.
Get well soon .. You are in my prayers young man
Praying you recover, God bless you and your family
Drivers are exploiting the pandemic to drive like total maniacs. Speeding up more than 50%. The roads are getting out of control .
@Bob Moore: also noticing a lot of cyclists completely ignoring traffic lights at busy junctions due to lack of traffic.. and not taking any real time to look in all directions!!
@Lydia McLoughlin: make sure you get the anti cyclists jibe on an article about a poor 11 year old smashed by a car
@Lydia McLoughlin: Really bad form Lydia. Think next time before you post. Cyclists don’t kill thousands of people around the world every year
This boy was innocently riding his bike.
Very, very insensitive of you. Cop on.
@Eoin Scanlon: I’m a cyclist and a driver. I find both your comments to be poorly timed. There are plenty of bad drivers, plenty of bad cyclists and plenty of pedestrians who practise poor judgement. My thoughts are with this child and his family at this moment in time.
Incredibly small minded people writing comments. I hope this poor 11 year old child makes a full recovery and thoughts and prayers with both his family and that of the driver. A bit of humanity goes along way over arguing with strangers getting insignificant jibes in. Roads are for everyone. Everyone who uses them has a responsibility for their own safety as well as that of other users. It doesn’t make every driver, cyclist or pedestrian involved in an accident open to idiotic comments by people who have no idea of the circumstances.
@Sandra Whelehan: agree Sandra.. but with great (horse) power comes great(er) responsibility. You can’t say an 11 year old on a bicycle is is responsible for his/her own safety. It’s up to us adults who drive to look out for other road users.
@Alan Kelly: Of course he’s responsible for his own safety if he’s on a road. What a strange thing to say.
@Johnny 5: hand in your driving license at your nearest Garda Station please.
@Alan Kelly: I know of a young girl (family member of my mams best friend) who literally ran out in front of a car, the car was going about 30km speed at tops, her friends all ran across the main road and she followed a couple of minutes later, ran from behind a parked car without looking. Anyways the car hit her, the way she landed on the road unfortunately gave her fatal injuries.
The poor car driver was never the same, he actually became very good friends with the young girls mam and they helped each other through the grief.
At the end of the day, it was a tragic accident pure and simple and there was no way of avoiding it. Moral of the story, accidents happen and it’s not always the drivers fault.
Hopefully the young lad makes a full and quick recovery.
@Aviationdub: yeah that can happen…that’s why you should always drive slowly past parked cars. As you approach cars, look for pedestrians feet under the parked cars. Same goes for buses at bus stops, watch out for passengers alighting and crossing the road in front of the bus! Like I said..when driving, we have a greater responsibility to look out for more vulnerable road users.
@Alan Kelly: So I should avert my attention from the road in front and look to see whether I can see feet under a parked car? Surely then I’m more at risk of knocking a pedestrian down coming from the other side? Maybe, just maybe all road users should learn the rules of the road? You’re basically saying all drivers should drive at 20 kms per hour because pedestrians are eejits.
@Johnny 5: you could look 5 times while approaching a parked and still not see a child dart out at the last second, thats even going at 20km. As I said freak accidents can happen and will always happen, we will never be able to stop it unfortunately.
@Johnny 5: Should we examine your 20 km/h proposal further? It might improve road safety.
@Johnny 5: no, just drive with due care and attention.
@Sandra Whelehan: well said.
@Sandra Whelehan: every time there is a crime which justifiably opens debate, people say “now is not the time- let people grieve”. Mass shootings for example.
@Alan Kelly: can I keep my license so?
Incredibly narrow country road but quite straight in places which inclines some motorists to drive too fast. Know the area very well
Don’t have to be speeding to injure an 11 year old.
Get well soon ☘️
A little boy is fighting for his life and look at most of the comments. People bickering about who is to blame and not one of you knows the facts. You all should be ashamed of yourselves. Please God little Daithi makes a full recovery
@Decko49: Exactly……..a child of 11 in 5th class in primary school. Hope he makes a full recover.
I live in the country and around every corner is more people out walking than ive ever seen before, drivers need to really slow down on small roads particularly, i worry for them when I see them walking, just takes one ejit to wreck a family…
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