Putin swore revenge on poisoned Russian spy
Traitors will choke on their 30 pieces of silver, said president as double agent was released to UK
VLADIMIR PUTIN vowed to kill the Russian double agent poisoned on British soil and now critically ill in hospital, it emerged last night.
The Russian president declared that “traitors will kick the bucket” as Colonel Sergei Skripal, who was convicted of working for MI6, was being sent to the UK in a spy exchange.
The emergence of Mr Putin’s warning will reinforce ministers’ belief that the attack on Col Skripal in Salisbury was a state-sponsored assassination attempt and perpetrated by the FSB Russian Intelligence Agency.
It came amid rising diplomatic tension between Moscow and London as Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, threatened fresh sanctions against Russia.
It also emerged last night that Col Skripal’s daughter Yulia, who too is in a critical condition after the attack, had previously expressed contempt for Mr Putin in social media posts, accusing him of being “the worst president in the world”. She also remarked “nice” when a friend said he hoped to see the president jailed.
Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, will this morning chair a meeting of Cobra, the government emergency committee, to discuss the crisis.
Last night, the home affairs select committee called for a review into 14 deaths that were not treated as suspicious by UK police but were reportedly identified by US Intelligence officials to Buzzfeed as linked to Russia.
Col Skripal, 66, and Yulia, 33, are in intensive care after being exposed to an unknown substance as they sat on a bench outside a shopping centre.
Police and intelligence agencies are seeking to understand why Col Skripal was targeted almost eight years on from the spy exchange in 2010. One motive is a possible link between Col Skripal and Christopher Steele, the former MI6 agent who compiled a notorious dossier detailing alleged corruption involving Donald Trump and the Kremlin.
The apparent attack also raised questions as to why Col Skripal’s identity was not protected after his arrival in Britain.
Mr Putin said in a television interview at the time of his release: “Traitors will kick the bucket. Trust me. These people betrayed their friends, their brothers-in-arms.
“Whatever they got in exchange for it, those 30 pieces of silver they were given, they will choke on them.”
In a day of extraordinary developments, the Metropolitan Police’s counter-terrorism unit took control of the investigation from the Wiltshire force.
Mr Johnson told Parliament the case drew “echoes” of the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the former FSB agent who was poisoned in London in 2006. He threatened further sanctions against Russia if it proved to be behind the attack, adding: “Though I am not now pointing fingers, I say to governments around the world that no attempt to take innocent life on British soil will go unsanctioned or unpunished.”
The Duke of Cambridge will be told to boycott the World Cup in Russia in June after Mr Johnson said it would be “very difficult” for dignitaries to attend.
Tensions between the Kremlin and Downing Street intensified when the Russian embassy accused Britain of the “demonisation of Russia”. However, one senior intelligence source told The Daily Telegraph last
night the apparent assassination attempt bore all the hallmarks of the Russian state. “This looks like an FSB hit,” they said. “For Putin, revenge is a dish served cold. This man betrayed the Russian security service and they do very nasty things to such people.”
Col Skripal was paid $100,000 (£72,000) by MI6 to pass on details of Russian agents during the Nineties when he was a senior officer in the Russian military’s GRU intelligence unit. He was later arrested and convicted in 2006 of treason.
He was released from jail in 2010 in exchange for Russian spies captured in the US, including Anna Chapman, who had lived in London and been married to a Briton.
A relative of Col Skripal has said he knew he would not easily escape his past, and told BBC Russia: “From the first day he knew it would end badly, and that he would not be left alone.”
Police and intelligence agencies are exploring a possible link to Mr Steele, the author of the Trump dossier that has seriously embarrassed both the White House and President Putin.
Mr Steele ran the MI6 desk in Moscow at a time when Col Skripal was being courted, and was in charge of the Russia desk in London from 2006 to 2009 while Col Skripal was in jail.
Prof Anthony Glees, of the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies at the University of Buckingham, said: “What we know is that Steele was our man in Russia, that he was extremely good. We know that what MI6 does is gain intelligence from human agents. You put all these things together, it is clear that either directly or indirectly Sergei Skripal would have been known to Christopher Steele, it cannot be otherwise.
“If it is the case that Christopher Steele produced a dossier on Trump that is authentic and accurate, then anybody who feels that Trump was humiliated and dissed by an MI6 officer may feel that getting at one of his agents is justified. That could be the Russian security services.”