British Ambassador to Germany Sebastian Wood was unable to answer journalists questions about the existence of evidence confirming Russia’s responsibility for the poisoning of ex-GRU colonel Sergei Skripal and his daughter. The recording of the conversation was published on Friday morning on the radio station’s website.
In response to a question about the existence of hard evidence, he repeated the British version that Russia allegedly developed a substance similar to that which caused the poisoning of the Skripals. As a result, he noted, UK “has concluded it was, with high probability, orchestrated by the Russia”
The journalist remarked that the speech is, yet again, about a “high probability” and repeated the question of why don’t British publish the evidence, the diplomat started talking about the solidarity of Europe and “responsibility to protect it’s citizens.” “We shared our evidence with our allies, they found it convincing,” Wood said.
On March 4, 66-year-old former GRU colonel Sergei Skripal, and his 33-year-old daughter Yulia were exposed to a nerve agent in Salisbury. London issued the statement alleging that the substance was developed in Russia. Moscow has rejected all accusations, saying there was no development program for such an agent in Russia.
UK expelled 23 Russian diplomats from the country and announced other anti-Russian measures, with Moscow taking a mirrored response, expelling the similar number of British embassy workers and ordering the UK consulate in St. Petersburg closed.
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs also demanded to bring the total numbers of British embassy and Consulate in Moscow “in line” with the number of their Russian counterparts in London.