Bucolic Brit town on edge
Russian toxin, Round 2
In a normally pleasant English town of 10,000 residents a stone’s throw from Stonehenge, the new reality is sinking in: Novichok, again.
Four months had passed in Salisbury since a nerve-agent attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. No longer were forensics experts in hazmat suits combing the area for an invisible toxin developed by the Soviets during the Cold War.
Eager tourists, drawn by a spell of glorious summer weather, were back at Stonehenge, and England’s World Cup team was surging, buoying spirits. Then a local couple with no obvious connection to Russia or to espionage fell desperately ill and the government said Novichok was to blame.
Some are embracing the “keep calm and carry on” ethos that helped England through two world wars, but others were frightened by the seemingly random poisoning of two innocents who now lie critically ill in a hospital.
“It’s shocking, and it’s scary,” said Elaine Read, a worker at The Kings Arms pub who used to occasionally socialize over pints with Dawn Sturgess, one of the victims. “Nobody expected it to happen again. Everyone was saying it was Russia, but now it’s just two . . . local people. They’re just like us.”
She said it’s difficult to feel safe after what happened to Sturgess, 44, and 45-year-old Charlie Rowley. Both became violently ill within hours of each other Saturday.
“You don’t know where it is, that’s the trouble,” Read said of the nerve agent. “You don’t know how Dawn and Charlie got it, how it crossed their paths.”
The bizarre case, combining elements of a murder mystery and a spy thriller, is stoking international tensions ahead of next week’s NATO summit, which will deal in part with worsening relations between Russia and nations of the West.
Britain’s interior minister demanded on Thursday that Russia explain how two people were poisoned with the same military-grade nerve agent used to attack ex-spy Skripal and his daughter in March.
Britain has accused Russia of being behind the attack on the Skripals, which the Kremlin denies. British Home Secretary Sajid Javid told Parliament on Thursday that it is now time for Russia to explain “exactly what has gone on.”
“It is completely unacceptable for our people to be either deliberate or accidental targets, or for our streets, our parks, our towns to be dumping grounds for poison,” Javid said.
In the area, residents were advised to wash their clothes and take other precautions if they were at the locations believed to have been frequented by the latest victims.