UK charges 3rd Russian in ex-spy poisoning case
Will respond to threat
“The government will continue to respond robustly to the enduring and significant threat from the Russian state.”– Priti Patel, uk interior minister
London, September 21
The British police on Tuesday charged a third Russian suspect in the 2018 nerve agent attack on a former Russian agent in England.
Scotland Yard said prosecutors believe there is sufficient evidence to charge Denis Sergeev, who went by the alias “Sergey Fedotov,” with conspiracy to murder, attempted murder, possessing and using a chemical weapon, and causing grievous bodily harm.
Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were targeted in a nerve agent attack in March 2018 in the English city of Salisbury that British authorities said had almost certainly approved been “at a senior level of the Russian state.” Moscow has vehemently denied the allegations.
The Skripals survived, but the attack later claimed the life of a British woman and left a man and a police officer seriously ill.
Britain will take steps to counter the threat from Russia and will try to detain the Russian military intelligence (GRU) operatives behind a 2018 nerve attack if they ever set foot outside Russia, Britain’s interior minister has said.
“The government will continue to respond extremely robustly to the enduring and significant threat from the Russian state,” interior minister Priti Patel told Parliament.
“We respect the people of Russia but we will do whatever it takes, everything it takes to keep our country safe,” Patel said.
The police previously charged two other Russian military intelligence agents, known by their aliases Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, saying they traveled to the UK for the poisoning operation, then flew back to Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed the suspects were civilians, and the two suspects later appeared on Russian television claiming they had visited Salisbury as tourists.
Police said Tuesday they have evidence that the third suspect, Sergeev, was also a member of the Russian military intelligence service known as the GRU. AP
