UK and Russia ‘in talks to replace 23 expelled envoys’

BRITAIN AND Russia are in talks to replace the 23 diplomats expelled from the UK in the wake of the Salisbury Novichok attack, MPs have heard.

The financier Bill Browder, a prominent Putin critic, appeared before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee and attacked the Government over its response to the poisoning last March.

The attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal left him and his daughter Yulia critically ill, and resulted in the death of Dawn Sturgess in July who was later exposed to the same nerve agent after handling a counterfeit Nina Ricci perfume bottle.

In the wake of the attack, the Prime Minister announced the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats, calling the incident an “unlawful use of force by the Russian state against the UK”.

But under questioning by MPs, Mr Browder criticised Britain’s lack of action.

“What has happened? 23 diplomats were expelled from this country and nothing else. Nothing else,” he told the cross-party committee.

“The United States sanctioned people, and sanctioned Russia for using chemical weapons in Salisbury, and the chemical weapons attack didn’t occur in the United States, it occurred in Great Britain.

“But this country has not done anything. By the way, there are now negotiations for 23 more Russian diplomats to return.”