One year has passed since former officer of Russian Military Intelligence Service (GRU) Colonel Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia became victims of the incident in England's town of Salisbury. Ahead of the first anniversary of the incident British media poured out another portion of fake news again accusing Russia of its alleged involvement in the poisoning of the Skripals with the Novichok nerve agent.
The Financial Times reported last Friday citing a report of the King’s College London that Russian media, in particular RT and Sputnik delude public about "the Skripal case" publishing "138 contradictory accounts" of what happened. And only heaven knows where "experts" of this college took so many theories allegedly promoted by Russian media. We here in Russia have heard nothing about these hundreds of theories. This is another London's lie.
It is rather easy to find an explanation for this. The Open Society foundation founded and funded by George Soros financed the publication of the report by King’s College London. And this man's "affection" to Russia is well-known, and this is where the report's authors drew anti-Russian conclusions from. It's a pity that such fake news is propagated by the Financial Times, a highly esteemed newspaper in the financial world. It is likely that this quality media outlet comes under "pressure from above," having been compelled to publish fantastic lies about Russia.
Another British media outlet, the Mail on Sunday, published an appeal of a number of British MPs who demanded that Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt look into ties of Russian Ambassador to the UK Alexander Yakovenko with KGB and GRU. This yellow newspaper that is constantly searching for scandalous news added that its own investigation revealed that Yakovenko was a Soviet intelligence officer during his tenure as a diplomat at the Soviet Permanent Mission to the UN in 1980-s.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia responded to this apparent lie. The ministry's spokesperson Maria Zakharova labeled this "British media investigation" that portrayed Russia's Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko as a spy as "blunt revenge."
"British yellow media decently and as concerted as always celebrated the Salisbury anniversary. Journalists there are eating their porridge not for nothing - they found the supreme Soviet-Russian spy. He turned out to be Alexander Yakovenko, our ambassador in London," Zakharova wrote on Facebook. She believes that British media are publishing well-orchestrated fakes that distract attention from the main question, "what happened in Salisbury on March 4, 2018?"
Indeed, one year has passed after the Salisbury incident, but the British authorities haven't told what actually happened there either Russia or the international community. The only fact that was made public is that on March 4, 2018 former GRU officer Sergei Skripal, who was by the way convicted in Russia for high treason, and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in the small English town. London immediately accused Russia of the poisoning sparking a huge international scandal. Russia suggested jointly investigating the incident, but the United Kingdom ignored the initiative. Moreover, Britons caught their Prime Minister Theresa May lying. She said that the nerve agent was produced in Russia, but the Porton Down lab that is located near Salisbury denied that.
Later, London publicized the photographs of two "suspects" of the poisoning, saying that they are GRU officers Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov. But they themselves said in an interview with RT and Sputnik editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan that they had visited Britain as tourists and had had nothing to do with special services. The third alleged participant of the Salisbury incident, Sergei Fedotov, again "a GRU officer," was found in London. And again the British authorities provided no evidence proving he was guilty of the Skripals poisoning, mere words and no facts.
But this is highly likely to be a part of the style of present-day official London that is incapable of anything else. It is enough to say that so far the British authorities have published no preliminary results of the still ongoing "Skripal case" investigation disseminating just fake news about the case in local media. Regretfully, the trouble is that many people in the United Kingdom and at its instigation in all allied countries of the Western world treat Moscow's involvement in the Skripal poisoning absolutely seriously. To be fair it is worth saying that the information campaign that London unleashed against Russia has partly hit the target. A real anti-Russian hysteria has overwhelmed the United Kingdom and the Western world, while Russophobic attitudes have reached an unparalleled scale. The United Kingdom expelled 23 Russian diplomats after the Salisbury incident. The figure stood at 153 Russian diplomats all over the world, with 60 being expelled from the USA. London promoted international economic sanctions against Russia, which were supported primarily by Washington. Britain is also compiling its own "Magnitsky list" and even threatens Russia militarily.
Moreover, the British authorities ended up accusing Russia of breaching international agreements, in particular the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention. Not long ago, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, famous for his anti-Russian statements, said that the Russian government allegedly used chemical weapons right on streets of Salisbury seeking to kill Sergei and Yulia Skripal.
Again Hunt gave no proof of Moscow's involvement in poisoning "the downed pilot" Skripal and his daughter. Well, he couldn't in fact, since "the Skripal case" was initially fabricated by London with the help of special services. The goal of the provocation is to do as much harm to Russia as possible and inflict irreparable damage to it on the international arena.
It is apparent that the Salisbury incident was masterminded and executed by the British authorities themselves. Hackers from Anonymous International have lately published materials proving that the United Kingdom had been preparing "the Skripal case" that was to be followed by anti-Russian sanctions four years ago. The hackers found out that this idea was conceived by Victor Madeira of the Institute for Statecraft. He voiced it back in early 2015 suggesting replaying the scenario of Operation FOOT that resulted in 1971 in the expulsion of 105 Soviet diplomats from the United Kingdom.
It seems that the history repeats itself but with some new details. For example, today official London uses "the Skripal case" and mythic Russia's trace in it to distract the attention of British public from the Brexit failure. It is Brexit that had brought the United Kingdom to a political crisis and chaos in general. And it is unlikely that "the Skripal case" that the British authorities orchestrated themselves would help them to cope with the grave situation in the country, just as to repair the seriously damaged image of London on the international arena...
