Russia shrugs off midnight deadline
MOSCOW: Russia rejected a British ultimatum to come clean over a suspected chemical weapon attack on its former double agent in the U.K. as it braced for threatened reprisals.
“This is all nonsense, we’ve got nothing to do with this,” Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said in Moscow on Tuesday. “Before issuing ultimatums to report to the British government within 24 hours, it would have been better to observe your obligations under international law.”
UK Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday, said that ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned just over a week ago with a “military grade” nerve agent known as “Novichok” that was developed in the Soviet Union.
She gave Russian President Vladimir Putin until midnight Tuesday to respond to the charges or face retaliation.
The crisis over the attempted murder, which comes just days before Sunday’s elections in which Putin is coasting toward a fourth term, threatens to further strain relations between Russia and the West. The UK has been rallying support for punitive measures among its allies in Europe and the US but with mixed results so far.
Russia expects diplomatic expulsions, though more drastic measures such as cutting Russian banks off from the Swift bank payment system are seen as unlikely, one person close to the Kremlin said.
Lavrov called on the UK to provide Russia samples of the poison and full access to the probe.
Former US secretary of state Rex Tillerson branded Russia an “irresponsible force of instability in the world” and said that those who had ordered and carried out the crime must face consequences.