Show evidence or apologise: Kremlin to UK on spy poisoning

Moscow, March 19

The Kremlin said on Monday that London would either have to back up its assertions that Russia was behind the poisoning of a former spy and his daughter in Britain with evidence or apologise “sooner or later.”

Britain has accused Russia of being responsible for the use of a Soviet-era nerve agent called Novichok which was used to poison Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with reporters that Britain’s allegations were “difficult to explain... groundless and slanderous”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday it was nonsense to think that Moscow was responsible for the attack.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said on Monday that Russia’s denials were “increasingly absurd.”

“The Russian denials grow increasingly absurd,” Johnson said as he arrived for a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels. “This is a classic Russian strategy of trying to conceal the needle of truth in a haystack of lies and obfuscation.” Agencies