Relations between Britain and Russia, soured since the “novichok poisoning” of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury last March, have plummeted by an exceptional degree with Theresa May’s startling disclosure in the House of Commons, of a kind that verily puts the Kremlin on notice. The two Russians, who were named and charged, have been …
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September 10, 2018What do you think spies are: priests, saints and martyrs? They are a squalid procession of vain fools, traitors too, yes; pansies, sadists and drunkards, people who play cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives. Do you think they sit like monks in London balancing the rights and wrongs? ~ John le Carré, The …
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April 26, 2018British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson wrote on Sunday that "no other government devotes as much time and effort to the business of trying to sabotage or discredit international inquiries" as Russia.
April 8, 2018Russia announced on Thursday the expulsion of 60 US diplomats and the closure of the American consulate in St. Petersburg in retaliation for Washington’s decision to boot an equal number of Russian diplomats over the poisoning of double-agent Sergei Skripal. “Based on the reciprocity principle, as a retaliatory measure, 58 employees of the US Embassy …
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March 30, 2018NATO became the latest entity to dismiss Russian diplomats over Moscow’s alleged role in a nerve agent attack against a former double agent in Salisbury, as the trans-Atlantic organisation announced on Tuesday that seven officials would have their accreditation withdrawn. At a press conference in Brussels, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg stated that the suspected nerve agent …
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March 28, 2018Last Sunday’s Russian presidential election was not preceded by much of a guessing game. The identity of the winner was never in any doubt. There were nonetheless plenty of questions surrounding it. Arguably, the least interesting of these revolved around the level of turnout and the extent of Vladimir Putin’s triumph. The official figures can …
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March 23, 2018Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that Britain should get to the bottom of the poisoning of former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal before discussing the issue with Moscow. “Get to the bottom of things there, then we’ll discuss this,” Xinhua quoted Putin as saying. Skripal, 66, was sentenced in Russia in 2006 to …
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March 13, 2018The UK police have identified more than 240 people as witnesses to the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the English city of Salisbury, according to Home Secretary Amber Rudd. Speaking after a meeting of the government’s emergency committee, Cobra, Rudd on Saturday said the government was using enormous resources …
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March 11, 2018