SPY CHIEF SLAMS PUTIN FOR RUSSIAN ‘LIES, THUGGERY’

Russia engaged in “criminal thuggery” and spread “bare-faced lies” with at least 30 different explanations for the Salisbury nerve attack, the head of MI5 has said. Andrew Parker said the Russian government tried to mislead the world with disinformation online and by publicly attacking its critics.

In a blistering critique, he laid the blame for the attack firmly at Vladimir Putin’s door, adding: “Whatever nonsense they conjure up, the case is clear.” It came ahead of a meeting Tuesday between the Russian ambassador and British MPs on the Russian all-party parliamentary group. Putin’s regime has been condemned since the attack in March on former double agent Sergei Skripal, the first use of a nerve agent in Europe since the Second World War.