Johnson hits at Putin over attack

LONDON: British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said yesterday that it was overwhelmingly likely that Russian President Vladimir Putin himself made the decision to use a military-grade nerve toxin to strike down a former Russian agent on English soil.

“We have nothing against the Russians themselves. There is to be no Russophobia as a result of what is happening,” Johnson told reporters at the Battle of Britain bunker from which World War II fighter operations were controlled.

“Our quarrel is with Putin’s Kremlin, and with his decision – and we think it overwhelmingly likely that it was his decision – to direct the use of a nerve agent on the streets of the UK, on the streets of Europe for the first time since the Second World War,” Johnson said.

Prime Minister Theresa May said on Wednesday the Russian state was culpable for the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal, a former double agent who betrayed dozens of spies of Britain’s MI6 foreign intelligence service, and his daughter.

Putin is likely to coast to a fourth term in tomorrow’s presidential election.

The Kremlin said accusations that Putin was involved in the nerve agent attack were shocking.

“Any reference or mention of our president in this regard is a shocking and unforgivable breach of diplomatic rules of decent behaviour,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

Russia has denied any involvement, cast Britain as a post-colonial power unsettled by Brexit, and even suggested London fabricated the attack in an attempt to whip up anti-Russian hysteria.