Salmond under pressure to say Russian poisoning suspects behind Czech blast
Alex Salmond is under pressure to condemn the Kremlin after it emerged the two men suspected of the Salisbury poisonings were linked to an explosion in the Czech Republic.
The former first minister has been criticised for his failure to say the Russian state was behind the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury in 2018 during this campaign.
Mr Salmond has been a presenter of the Alex Salmond Show on the Russia-backed broadcaster RT (former Russia Today) since 2017, but claims the show is independent of any editorial control from the broadcaster.
The politician, who is aiming to gain a “super-majority” of pro-independence MSPS in this election, has repeatedly refused to categorically state that Russia was behind the attack in Salisbury.
He also told BBC Radio Scotland there was only “very slight” evidence the Russian state meddled in the US election in 2016. In an interview with LBC last week. Mr Salmond said he did not know if Vladimir Putin’s government was behind the poisonings.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said she is not surprised at Mr Salmond’s comments and added there were times she no longer recognised the man she used to work alongside.
Following the news the two men linked to the Salisbury poisoning, Alexander Petrov, 41, and Ruslan Boshirov, 43, are wanted in the Czech Republic in connection to an
explosion at an arms depot, additional pressure was put on Mr Salmond by Alistair Carmichael MP to denounce the Kremlin’s actions.
The campaign chair for the Scottish Liberal Democrats said it was time for the former leader of the SNP to stop avoiding “offending his Russian paymasters”.
He said: "Our allies in Europe need to know that we stand
with them against Putin's violent and anti-democratic regime
"Alex Salmond has gone out of his way to avoid offending his Russian paymasters over the Skripal poisoning.”
Mr Carmichael added: "Now the same agents are implicated in another deadly attack on European soil. Perhaps he thinks they were just sightseeing? "If Alex Salmond is
serious about returning to the Scottish Parliament, he should tell the public whether heacceptsthatrussianagents were behind this deadly incident."
In a radio interview earlier this month, Mr Salmond refused four times to say whether he believes Russia was behind the Salisbury poisonings. In 2019, RT - formerly known as Russia Today - was fined by Ofcom for a serious breach of impartiality rules.
The media watchdog said RT'S failures had been "serious and repeated".
Following an investigation, Ofcom found that RT had broken TV impartiality rules in seven programmes discussing the Salisbury poisonings.
Asked if he shared the view that Russia was behind the incident, Mr Salmond repeatedly refused to say he agreed.
Asked again if Russia was to blame for the Salisbury attack, Mr Salmond replied: "The evidence was presented at the time.
"I'm struggling to understand what this has got to do with a Scottish election campaign."