Get tough on Russia
In the wake of what was almost certainly Russia’s appalling March 4 public nerve agent attack on one of its former spies now living in England, the Kremlin has defiantly continued to display its contempt for responsible statecraft.
In answer to Great Britain’s completely defensible demands that Russia explain how a Soviet-era-designed nerve agent, Novichok, had been deployed to nearly kill former Russian double agent Sergei Skrupal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, in Salisbury earlier this month, Russian officials reacted with derision.
They mocked the British as uncivilized and “boorish.” Russian officials claimed British Prime Minister Theresa May was simply trying to deflect from her Brexit problems. Russia’s state media concocted wild, fanciful theories about the attack.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin implausibly denied Russia, or the former Soviet regime, had ever created such a chemical weapon, despite conclusive evidence to the contrary.
Even by the cynical standards of Vladimir Putin, who won a new presidential term Sunday in the latest rigged election, the attack — which has left Skrupal and his daughter still in critical but stable condition — was conspicuously brazen.
But it’s nothing new. Putin has consistently flouted international law whenever it suited him —annexing the Crimea, meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, enabling Syria’s Assad to get away with using chemical weapons by providing cover at the UN Security Council.
Putin does this because the consequences — denunciations and sanctions —don’t hurt him internationally as much as they help him domestically. All the penalties lend credence to his claims the West seeks to humble Russia, keeping it from its true place as a leading world power.
May has talked tough since the nerve agent attack, which occurred in a shopping area of Salisbury. A police officer who came to the Skrupals’ aid was made ill by the nerve agent. As many as 500 civilians in the area were also exposed to risk of harm.
May’s Wednesday expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats accused of being spies is the biggest such action in many decades. The British prime minister also severed high-level contacts and promised further repercussions, including targeting suspect Russian money coming into her country.
The latter threat would mark a change. Critics point out that despite previous Kremlin outrages, like the 2006 murder of another Russian ex-spy on U.K. soil, Britain has been content not to ask too many questions about the sources of vast amounts of Russian investment, especially in London, from many of Putin’s oligarch friends.
A toughly worded joint statement by the U.K., U.S., Germany and France last week that blamed Russia for the attack, rightly pointing out it was hard to conclude otherwise, was welcome. Canada also condemned Russia for its actions.
But unless Britain and others follow up with more hard-hitting penalties, Putin will conclude —once again —that he can act with relative impunity whenever he wishes.
That’s a dangerous state of affairs, as the people of Salisbury sadly learned first-hand.