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Russia mocks Britain after 2 more people poisoned with nerve agent

A couple was found unconscious near the same park where a former spy and his daughter were nearly killed in March.

Luke Barnes Twitter
AMESBURY, ENGLAND - JULY 05: Police on the scene at Muggleton Road where a major incident was declared after a man and woman were exposed to the Novichok nerve agent on July 5, 2018 in Amesbury, England. (CREDIT: Jack Taylor/Getty Images)
AMESBURY, ENGLAND - JULY 05: Police on the scene at Muggleton Road where a major incident was declared after a man and woman were exposed to the Novichok nerve agent on July 5, 2018 in Amesbury, England. (CREDIT: Jack Taylor/Getty Images)

British counter-terror police are investigating the apparent poisoning of a couple by an “unknown substance” just eight miles from where former Russia spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with a deadly nerve agent in March.

The pair were found unconscious at a house in Amesbury, Wiltshire Saturday, and were immediately rushed to hospital where they remain in a critical condition. On Wednesday British authorities said that the victims had been exposed to the same nerve agent, Novichok, that was used to poison the Skripals earlier in the year.

Investigators still do not know how the pair — who had spent time at Queen Elizabeth Gardens, near where the Skripals lost consciousness — had come into contact with the Novichok. Metropolitan Police officials are assisting local officers with the investigation, and the British government’s emergency committee, Cobra, said it was treating the incident “with the utmost seriousness”.

Personnel in protective coveralls and breathing equiptment work at the Salisbury District Hospital in Salisbury, southern England, on March 10, 2018, in connection with the major incident sparked after a man and a woman were apparently poisoned in a nerve agent attack.. (Photo credit should read DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP/Getty Images)

UK prime minister blames Kremlin for Russian spy poisoning

Former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter remain in a critical condition after being exposed to a nerve agent.

The latest poisoning creates a major headache for authorities, as well as the town of Salisbury. When the Skripals were initially poisoned in March, an exhaustive, military-led clean up effort focused on the pub and restaurant they had visited prior to falling ill, the park area where they were found, a car storage facility, stations used by first responders, and the house of a detective who was one of the first at the scene.

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The newest development, however, raises the possibility that traces of Novichok were left throughout other parts of Salisbury and the surrounding area — presumably by the persons who carried out the hit on the Skripals.

Officials have again pointed the finger at Russia, who Prime Minister Theresa May officially blamed for the Skripal poisoning earlier in the year. The U.K.’s security minister, Ben Wallace, told the BBC that Russian authorities could help significantly with the investigation by supplying them with information.

“The Russian state could put this wrong right,” he said. “They could tell us what happened, what they did and fill in some of the significant gaps we are trying to pursue. We have said they can come and tell us what happened. I’m waiting for the phone call from the Russian state. The offer is there.”

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The Kremlin has said however that, while the latest poisonings are “disturbing”, they have not yet received any appeal from the U.K. Other Russian diplomats this week took things a step further, mocking the officials investigating the new poisonings.

“How dumb they think [Russia] is to use ‘again’ so-called ‘Novichok’ in the middle of the FIFA World Cup and after the special session of the CSP,” the Russian embassy in the Netherlands posted on Twitter. “The show must go on?”

Meanwhile, the Russian Embassy in South Africa pointed out that Britain’s Porton Down chemical weapons laboratory was located close to Salisbury — implying that the poisoning was actually an accident and cover-up. The Russian Embassy in London, on the other hand, simply spent the morning ridiculing British newspaper reports about how dangerous it would be to travel to Russia for the World Cup.

In response to the Skripal poisoning the British government duly expelled 23 Russian diplomats, and has also begun to crack down on Russian oligarchs who have long used the U.K. (and especially London) to stash their wealth. It remains to be seen, however, whether the U.K. will respond to this latest incident with more retaliatory measures.