UK: Putin ultimately to blame for spy attack

Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin bears ultimate responsibility for a nerve agent attack on a former Russian spy and his daughter in Salisbury earlier this year, Britain’s security minister said yesterday.

Prime Minister Theresa May said police and prosecutors now believe the attack on Sergei Skripal was carried out by two Russian military intelligence officers who were almost certainly acting with the approval of senior Russian officials.

Russia has denied any involvement and some Russian officials have suggested the British security services carried out that attack to stoke anti-Moscow hysteria.

Asked whether President Putin bears responsibility, Ben Wallace told BBC radio: “Ultimately he does in so far as he is the president of the Russian Federation and it is his government that controls, funds and directs the military intelligence.” “Ultimately of course he is responsible, he is leader of the state,” he said.

Skripal, 66, a former colonel in Russian military intelligence who betrayed dozens of agents to Britain’s MI6 foreign spy service, and his daughter Yulia, 33, were found unconscious on a public bench in the English city of Salisbury on March 4.

UK officials were yesterday to brief the UN Security Council on two men suspected of carrying out the attack.

Prosecutors say there is evidence to charge the pair, who the prime minister said are thought to be officers from Russia’s military intelligence service the GRU.

Theresa May told the Commons on Wednesday the suspects had entered the UK on Russian passports using the names Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov. She said the poisoning was “not a rogue operation” and was “almost certainly” approved at a senior level of the Russian state.