A licence to kill? Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov implies British agents poisoned double agent Sergei Skripal
Lavrov also denied the attack was ‘sophisticated’, saying that if it had been, the victims would have died immediately
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday suggested that the poisoning of a former double agent could benefit the British government by distracting attention from problems around Brexit.
The March 4 attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the English city of Salisbury has triggered a wave of tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats between the West and Russia and sent relations plunging to new post-cold war lows.
“This could be in the interests of the British government which found itself in an uncomfortable situation having failed to fulfil promises to its electorate about the conditions for Brexit,” Lavrov said at a press conference in Moscow, referring to Britain’s planned departure from the European Union.
Lavrov also suggested that the poisoning of Skripal and his daughter “could also be in the interests of the British special forces who are known for their abilities to act with a licence to kill”.
Our British colleagues have lost their sense of reality
“There could be a whole number of reasons and none of them can be ruled out,” Lavrov said.