Skripal case ‘used to harm ties’

ATTEMPTS to blame it for the mysterious illness that has struck down a Russian former double agent in Britain were wrong and looked like part of a campaign to damage relations between London and Moscow, Russia said yesterday.

Sergei Skripal, once a colonel in Russia’s GRU military intelligence service, and his daughter, Yulia, were found slumped unconscious on a bench outside a shopping centre in southern England on Sunday afternoon. They remain critically ill in hospital. Britain has warned Russia it will respond robustly if the Kremlin was responsible, while newspaper The Times has cited British government sources as saying the suspected poisoning is being treated as an assassination attempt linked to Russia.

Skripal, sent to Britain as part of a 2010 spy swap, sold the identities of dozens of Russian agents across Europe and is regarded as a traitor by Moscow.

But Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said allegations of Russian involvement were bogus.

It looked as if there was an orchestrated campaign under way to harm ties between London and Moscow involving British politicians and the media, she said in Moscow.

She cited the deaths of two other Russians in Britain, tycoon Boris Berezovsky and businessman Alexander Perepilichny, as examples where the finger had also been wrongly pointed at Moscow.