POISONED SPY ‘TRAITOR TO HIS MOTHERLAND,’ PUTIN SAYS

President Vladimir Putin lashed out at ex-spy Sergei Skripal as a “scumbag” and a “traitor” in his harshest public response to accusations that Russia targeted the double agent in the first chemicalweapons attack in Europe since the Second World War.

Skripal, who survived a nerveagent poisoning in March with his daughter Yulia, is “just a spy, a traitor to his motherland,” Putin told an energy forum in Moscow on Wednesday. “He’s just a scumbag.”

Putin repeated denials that his country was responsible for the attack in Britain, saying there was no reason to eliminate Skripal, who was freed in a spy swap in 2010.

The U.K, has accused two Russian military intelligence agents of carrying out the poisoning using a nerve-agent called Novichok smuggled in a fake Nina Ricci perfume bottle.