Russia warns UK: You’re playing with fire
RUSSIA last night accused the UK of ‘playing with fire’ over the Salisbury poisoning.
The Kremlin’s UN ambassador Vasily Nebenzya, speaking in New York, said Britain had questions to answer over the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. Mr Nebenzya added: ‘We have told our British colleagues that you are playing with fire and you will be sorry.’
It came as Russia’s most senior diplomat in London was branded ‘Comical Ali’ after he denied his country had ever produced the Novichok nerve agent.
Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko laughed off a string of questions about Salisbury, saying: ‘It has nothing to do with Russia.’ His denial came even though Russian chemist Vil Mirzayanov has told of how he helped deliver the Soviet-era agent for the country during the latter stages of the Cold War.
The British Government also says it has evidence Russia has produced the Novichok agent within the past ten years and remains capable of doing so. Mr Yakovenko was likened to toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s minister of information, Mohammad Said Sahhaf, who was nicknamed Comical Ali due to his absurd false claims.
Philip Ingram, a former senior military intelligence officer, said: ‘The Russian ambassador’s rambling statement showed the signs of a chink in their slick information campaign.’
Mr Ingram, who served in Iraq, added: ‘It bordered on the farcical and reminded me of the Iraqi spokesman Comical Ali in 2003.’
Mr Yakovenko denied any involvement in the poisoning in Salisbury, denied trolling the UK Government on Twitter, denied his diplomats were spies, and denied that Vladimir Putin said he would target ‘traitors’.
Mr Yakovenko also complained that Russian scientists were not involved in the testing of nerve agent samples from Salisbury, adding: ‘In order to have these answers, we have to investigate.’ But security minister Ben Wallace said: ‘Allowing Russia to join the investigation would be like allowing Al Capone to approve his own tax return.’