U.K PM warns Putin not to reapat chemical attacks on Britain

Author: Alexandru-Marian Crenganiș

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has told Vladimir Putin in their first official meeting that Moscow must not repeat a chemical attack on Britain like the 2018 nerve agent attack in Salisbury against former Russian spy Sergei Skripal.

Downing Street said Johnson told the Russian president on the sidelines of a summit in Berlin on January 19 that ties between Moscow and London will not return to normal until Russia ends its "destabilizing" activities.

The prime minister said there will be no normalization of our bilateral relationship until Russia ends the destabilizing activity that threatens the U.K. and our allies and undermines the safety of our citizens and collective security.

The Kremlin rejects Britain’s accusations that Russian GRU military intelligence agents used Novichok, a powerful nerve agent, to poison Skripal in retribution for his work with British spy services.

On January 19, the British prime minister told Putin "they both had a responsibility to address issues of international security including Libya, Syria, Iraq and Iran".But the British leader also made clear that this dialogue did not mean London's relations with the Kremlin were back on track. Johnson has a long history of feuds with Putin.

Shortly after the March 2018 Novichok attack, when Johnson was Britain's foreign secretary in the cabinet of then-Prime Minister Theresa May, he blamed Putin personally and criticized the Kremlin over the poisoning of the Skripals.

Immediately after this attac British leader he said "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." 

The Kremlin lashed back at Johnson's remarks as "unforgivable."