Diplomat points a finger at Putin

LONDON» The U.K.’s top diplomat pointed the finger directly at Vladimir Putin, saying it was “overwhelmingly likely” that he personally ordered the nerveagent attack on British soil.

In a rapid escalation of a diplomatic crisis between the two countries, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said the U.K.’s problem was not with the Russian people but with the Russian leader.

His intervention came the same day as the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said it was willing to support the U.K.’s investigation into the poisoning of a Russian double agent and his daughter, and London police said that a Russian man found dead this week had been murdered.

“Our quarrel is with Putin’s Kremlin and with his decision — and we think it overwhelmingly likely that it was his decision — to direct the use of a nerve agent on the streets of the U.K., on the streets of Europe, for the first time since World War II,” Johnson said in west London.

Prime Minister Theresa May announced the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats Wednesday in response to the poisoning of the former spy in southwest England, and Britain is waiting on the Kremlin’s response, which is expected to include tit-for-tat expulsions as the two countries trade barbs over the apparent attempted murder of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

“We have said on different levels and occasions that Russia has nothing to do with this story,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a text message responding to Johnson’s claim. “Any reference or mentioning of our President is nothing else but shocking and unpardonable diplomatic misconduct.”

The diplomatic tension increased further Friday afternoon when London’s Metropolitan Police said it is treating as murder the death of Nikolai Glushkov, a close associate of Putin opponent Boris Berezovsky — a onetime billionaire who was himself found hanging dead in 2013 in his house outside London.