‘WE WERE TOURISTS’
Pair accused of poisoning ex-spy appear on Russian TV
Looking anxious and sweaty, the two Russians accused of carrying out the first chemical-weapon attack in Europe since the Second World War insisted they were just simple tourists eager to see an ancient English cathedral.
Even the Russian state TV interviewer who quizzed Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov seemed skeptical that a love of Gothic architecture drew them to make two visits to the city of Salisbury on the same weekend that a former spy, Sergey Skripal, fell victim to the nerve-agent poisoning.
The cathedral is famous throughout the world for its tall spire and old clock, insisted Boshirov.
“It’s up there with Monty Python,” said Chris Bryant, an opposition Labour Party lawmaker and chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Russia, after the Kremlin-funded RT TV posted the 25-minute clip on Thursday. “It’s almost as if they are sticking two fingers up at the U.K.”
The men appeared on screen a day after President Vladimir Putin had urged them to come forward, saying they were civilians and “there’s nothing unusual or criminal” in their behaviour.
The U.K. was unmoved. “The lies and blatant fabrications in this interview, given to a state-sponsored TV station, are an insult to the public’s intelligence,” said James Slack, spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May. Her government alleges the men are officers of GRU military intelligence and that the poison attack was approved at the highest levels in Russia.
Relations between London and the Kremlin, already frosty, plunged into crisis after the attack. May rallied support from allies for coordinated expulsions of more than 150 Russian diplomats, prompting titfor-tat retaliation from Moscow.
The U.S. plans to impose a new round of “very severe” sanctions on Russia in November over the Skripal poisoning, Manisha Singh, assistant secretary of state, told a congressional hearing Thursday.
In the interview, Boshirov said that while they may have passed Skripal’s home during their visit to Salisbury, “we don’t know where it’s located” and “I’d never heard this name before.”
They spent no more than an hour in Salisbury and returned to London after abandoning a plan to visit the Stonehenge monument because of “muddy slush” and snow in the city, Petrov said. They returned the next day to see the sights.