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EUROPEAN UNION LEADERS have united behind British Prime Minister Theresa May in blaming Russia for a nerve agent attack in England, and have agreed to recall their ambassador to Moscow for consultations.
Some states are now considering following Britain’s lead in expelling Russian diplomats, with Lithuania and France among those indicating a willingness to take action.
British Prime Minister Theresa May had pressed the importance of a united response to the 4 March poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the English city of Salisbury.
At a summit in Brussels, the 28 EU leaders offered her their full support, agreeing “that it is highly likely that the Russian Federation is responsible and that there is no plausible alternative explanation”.
They pledged to “coordinate on the consequences”, and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said they had agreed to recall the bloc’s ambassador to Moscow for consultations.
“Some member states are looking into possibly expelling Russian diplomats or recalling national diplomats,” an EU official added.
Moscow strongly denies any involvement but London has identified the chemical used as the Soviet-designed Novichok and says Russia had the means and the motive to carry out the attack.
May emphasised to EU leaders that it came as part of a “pattern of Russian aggression” and warned Moscow would pose a threat for “years to come” – long past Britain’s exit from the bloc in March next year.
“The threat that Russia poses respects no borders and it is a threat to our values,” she said after briefing fellow leaders over dinner.
It is right that here in the EU council we are standing together to uphold those values.
The Skripals are both in a coma after they were found collapsed on a park bench, although a policeman who was also contaminated was released from hospital yesterday.
Diplomatic expulsions
The United States, France and Germany offered early backing for the conclusion that Moscow was to blame for the first offensive use of a nerve agent in Europe since World War II.
But Britain’s efforts to win a tough line from all 28 EU members ran up against countries keen to protect their Kremlin ties, notably Greece and Italy.
May met French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel shortly before the dinner, and both called for a “strong European message”, their offices said.
“We had an in-depth, very long discussion and said in a very unified way that it was highly likely that Russia was behind the attack, that there could not be another explanation,” Merkel said after the meeting of all 28 leaders.
The poisoning has heightened worries across Europe about Russian meddling – from repeated cyber attacks to what the EU has called an “orchestrated strategy” of disinformation aimed at destabilising the bloc.
Britain expelled 23 Russian diplomats they said were spies and has been pressing EU allies to follow suit.
Lithuania’s outspoken President Dalia Grybauskaite said: “All of us, we are considering such measures.”
A French presidency source earlier said Paris was also ready to act.
“Some countries, like France, are ready for possible measures to be decided at a national level in cooperation with other European countries,” the source said.
London also suspended high-level diplomatic contacts, including an official-level boycott of the World Cup football tournament in Russia this summer.
Moscow expelled its own diplomats and halted the activities of the British Council cultural organisation.
The Kremlin has angrily rejected Britain’s claims and Russian state media have offered numerous alternative explanations, including that London directed the attack itself.
Russian President Vladimir Putin convened a meeting of his national security council on Thursday to discuss “Britain’s hostile and provocative policy towards Russia”, according to a Kremlin statement.
‘Never the same’
Authorities have yet to disclose exactly how Skripal and his daughter were poisoned, although dozens of people in the area were assessed by medics for possible contamination.
Local policeman Nick Bailey was hospitalised following the incident but was released yesterday.
“Normal life for me will probably never be the same,” he told reporters.
Britain believes it knows the exact type of chemical used and where it came from but has called in experts from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to test its samples, as required by international law.
Their tests, which a British judge ordered yesterday could include samples of blood from Skripal and his daughter, are expected to take at least a fortnight.
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The big problem here is no one trusts politicians any more, they are known to lie in all country’s
@David Huston: yes and whats new since the beginning of the pyramids lol or before
Any hard evidence yet?
@JimmyMc: No evidence.. “plausible “ that Russia poisoned them. A bit like “I guess and I presume “. If I were planning to poison someone, I would use something that the whole world knew that I had manufactured !
@Marie Berrill: If you wanted the whole world to know you did it, of course you’d use a weapon that could be linked back to you.
Putin knows full well that NATO etc. are a soft touch when it comes down to it.
@JimmyMc: Any evidence at all would be a start!
@Michael Hunt: I’d say they have the same amount of evidence as they had when they claimed to the world that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
I think Ireland should keep under the radar on this one
@Nick Allen: i agree Nick, lets keep to precedent for WWIII and stay neutral. Putin’s in history making mode, grab some territory, invade europe, the usual stuff a 65yo gets up to when he realises hes 73 in 2 world cups. I measure life in world cup final measures.
@Chewey Bacca:
My concern would be the relationship with the US. Trump is openly supportive of Putin. We rely on the US for a lot of our economy. Trump is liable to do anything, see China and 60BN of new import duty. We don’t want to be making an enemy of Trump and we definitely don’t want some knee jerk reactions which puts our US business under threat
@Nick Allen: Typical Irish cowardly response. Thankfully Leo is showing a bit of real courage by announcing that he is seriously considering kicking out a few Russian spies in support for the UK. Fair dues Leo. Cometh the hour n all that.
@Rodrigodetriano:
You may be mistaking cowardly for tactical
@Rodrigodetriano: __ You’re obviously the spokesperson for idiots, who would rather wade into taking action without being 100% certain of the facts. In this case no one is 100% certain of the facts except those responsible for the Salisbury incident.
@Nick Allen: Nick, you’re dead right on this one.
Well there is another plausible alternative explanation..That the poisoning attack was carried out by western intelligence agencies, do people seriously believe they wouldn’t be capable of doing so
@Moss Cotter: If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.
@Ger Healy: I’d suspect it’s more likely he was poisoned by one of the 300 or so angry spies he betrayed when he was double-agent. No Moscow involvement necessary, just personal vendetta.
@Moss Cotter: You keep using that word “plausible”. I do not think it means what you think it means.
@Moss Cotter:
Yes, it would really serve the West’s interests well to deter an entire generation of potential Russian spies from sharing sensitive Russian information with the West.
Notice she had a meeting with germany,france,leaders before meeting leaders leaders of member states,its obvious who makes the decisions for the EU,germany and france,and the rest follow whatever they decide.
No evidence whatsoever has been offered by the British for this contrived accusation which has been utterly refuted by the Russians. This is dangerous politics and the puppet masters governing the EU are hard at work. Lets hope the ordinary people dont pay dearly for the hedonistic self serving agenda of the governing but secret elite as they have done previously throughout history!
@Michael Hunt: I have read that Double-agent Skripal betrayed 300 spies, who would likely be very angry with him. If only a very small percentage of them had access to poison….well, a Russian spy who had been double-crossed might have done it as revenge, and Moscow may not have ordered the poisoning at all.
@Michael Hunt: How’s the weather in Petrograd comrade?
@Michael Hunt:
No evidence that they’ve put into the public domain yet.
On the other hand the evidence they’ve shared with the EU (and the OPCW) has been sufficient to convince those countries that Russia is almost certainly responsible on some level.
@Harry Whitehead: https://weather.com/weather/tenday/l/Petrograd+Russia+RSCB1062:1:RS
A quick google would have told you.
@Walt Jabsco: How does being convinced about an almost certainty work?
@Walt Jabsco: Yup, we all know that UK secret evidence. We have seen it when their evidence unmasked Iraqi WMD stockpiles. Oh boy, that evil Saddam nearly got us all can you imagine? 30 minutes to strike us all with his nonexistent missiles?
I bet that it is highly likely we will never see that evidence they shared with France and Germany as it is very probable that they had nothing to share…
It’s those Meerkats I feel sorry for. They had a good gig going and now nobody will touch them.
But what will they do about it??
@David Byrne: 100% right.
The Russians did it, everyones knows they did it but nobody will do anytrhing about it. Why? Vlad takes no prisoners and has lots of nukes.
@Dave Sherman: Europe is very, very angry with Russia. And they will write Russia a letter, telling them how angry they are. And then Putin will bark and Europe will cower and sit like the good boy that it is.
@An Observer2:
What would you suggest – lobbing over a few nukes?
@An Observer2: __ Europe won’t sit and cower, more sanctions against Russia will be imposed, and the Putin-bots will stir up the internet a la pre Brexit referendum in the hope of bringing down the EU.
@Ted Murray: You are delusional. All that sanctions accomplished till today is that Russia is now self-sufficient in food and actually become world number one exporter of organic food.
Oh yes and also price increase of gas and fuel for europe.
Yes, we need more of that.
“London has identified the chemical used as the Soviet-designed Novichok”, no they haven’t. Leo in “look at how strong a leader I am” mode.
”HOW RUSSIAN INTELLIGENCE KILLS DOUBLE-AGENTS (UK GOVERNMENT GUIDE):
1. Capture double-agent.
2. Don’t kill him in police custody. Put him on trial instead.
3. Find him guilty of high treason.
4. Don’t sentence him to death. Sentence him to 13 years in a Russian prison instead.
5. Don’t have him killed in prison.
6. Don’t arrange for him to meet with any accidents in prison.
7. Provide him with food and water, thereby ensuring the man you want dead stays alive.
8. 4 years into his prison sentence, let the man you’re trying to kill go free.
9. Don’t arrange for him to meet with any accidents while leaving the prison compound.
10. And just to make sure you can still kill him easily in the future – let him leave Russia as well.
11. Accelerate your so-far-unsuccessful efforts to kill him by trying to find him again, having released him to live in a very specific, easily-traceable location in the world called ‘Not Russia’.
12. Spend 8 years sneaking around the world outside Russia in places where you’re not allowed to kill people you’ve let go, trying to find the man you let go so you can kill him.
13. Once you finally find him in God-Knows-Where (the phrase in Russian is ‘Salisbury’), don’t kill him in any boring, conventional way that makes it look like a robbery or a mugging. Make sure you use a Russian nerve agent just so the world will know it was you, and identify you as a Bond Villain.
14. Leave the Russian nerve agent lying around half of Salisbury. That way innocent people might get hurt by the Russian nerve agent as well, successfully turning world opinion further against you. Remember, the objective of Russian foreign policy is to alienate as many potential allies as possible and turn yourself into an international pariah. And to poison Salisbury. They’ve always had it coming.
15. Finally, just to send a really clear message to any other Russian agents thinking of betraying you, categorically deny having anything to do with the killing. Just so they really know where they stand.
16. By this extremely elaborate method of killing its double-agents, the Russian state offers a chilling deterrent to anyone thinking of betraying them – the sure knowledge that betraying Russia will lead to you being captured, not executed, imprisoned for a few years, fed and watered, set free again and then allowed to leave Russia to live anywhere else in the world you like until you’re maybe killed 8 years later if the Russians can eventually find you again and if they’re really in the mood to alienate the entire world just before they host the World Cup.
And this, according to the UK Government, is how the dastardly, sneaky Russian state manages to kill its double-agents, eventually after about 12 years of shambolically failing miserably.
@Weldoninhio: What, like the same Russian agents who were appallingly slapdash in their handling of a radioactive substance while they were poisoning Litvenenko?
The EU are waiting on the the results from the OPCW an independent body before issuing a formal statement acknowledging Russia was the one who carried out the attack. The language being used now is Diplospeak for “We know Russia did it and we want the OPCW to confirm it”. It was the exact same during the MH17 investigation.
“highly likely” is not good enough. Either the Russians were behind the attack or they weren’t.
If the British or their puppet masters had ANY verifiable, credible evidence whatsoever they would not have to resort to using to crass half baked innuendo. Pathetic and extremely dangerous. Ieo needs to grow a pair and call this farce out for what it is!
He can use shannon to refuel!
There’s no need to say anything else about this except “No Solid Evidence“. Everything after that is speculation and premature no matter which direction it is. We simply don’t know and to take action based on what we don’t know is the height of stupidity.
it’s very likely he murdered her is not enough to convict but seems it is enough to start a war
I am writing a demand letter to Kremlin to compensate me otherwise I am implementing sanction on all things russian.
In a light of Salisbury events, it occurred to me that Russia is responsible for my accident some years ago. First of all, I am now sure it was not an accident but sinister act aimed at discrediting my person. I do feel I was poisoned by the Soviet-made substance called vodka which was innocently looking like water albeit with the strange taste.
I was unaware that I was being ensnared in sinister Russian plot and sat in my car attempting to get home only to find out I ended up in some snowed up ditch.
In the light of recent UK findings, I can safely conclude that vodka – originally developed by to this date unknown individuals in Russia was highly likely used to send a warning to other people that they should not mess with Russia and I was targeted as I once said that Jeltsin was a drunk. (Russia never forgets – hence why I am sure I was deliberately targeted).
Also snowed up ditch is very suspicious as we all know there is an abundance of snow in Russia so perhaps it is also highly likely that that snow may have originated from some Russian cloud.
* off to think what else can I blame russians for.
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