Tag Archives: Putin

UK says world’s patience is wearing thin with Russia’s Putin after chemical attack

British Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson visits UK troops of the NATO Enhanced Forward Presence battle group at the military base in Tapa, Estonia March 25, 2018. REUTERS/Janis Laizans

TALLINN (Reuters) – British Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said on Monday that the world was united behind Britain’s stance over the poisoning of a former Russian spy and that patience was wearing thin with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Britain has blamed Russia for the attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia with a military-grade Soviet-era nerve agent on March 4, winning the support of NATO and European leaders.

The Kremlin has denied any involvement and says Britain is orchestrating an anti-Russia campaign.

During a visit to Estonia, Williamson said the backing for Britain was in “itself a defeat for President Putin”.

“The world’s patience is rather wearing thin with President Putin and his actions, and the fact that right across the NATO alliance, right across the European Union, nations have stood up in support of the United Kingdom … I actually think that is the very best response that we could have,” he told reporters.

“Their (the Kremlin’s) intention, their aim is to divide and what we are seeing is the world uniting behind the British stance and that in itself is a great victory and sends an exceptionally powerful message to the Kremlin and President Putin.”

European Union member states agreed on Friday to take additional punitive measures against Russia over the attack on Skripal, found slumped on a bench with his daughter in the southern English city of Salisbury.

U.S. President Donald Trump is also considering the expulsion of some Russian diplomats, a source familiar with the situation said on Sunday.

Williamson also said he was surprised and disappointed by reports about European Union proposals to freeze Britain out of the Galileo satellite navigation project as part of negotiations over Britain’s exit from the bloc next year.

The Financial Times newspaper reported that the EU was looking to lock Britain’s space industry out of the 10 billion euro program to protect its security after Britain leaves the bloc next year.

“The United Kingdom has been absolutely clear that we do not want to bring the defense and security of Europe into part of the negotiations because we think it is absolutely vital,” Williamson said.

“So I very mush hope that the European Union commission will take the opportunity to see sense, re-calibrate its position and not play politics on something that is so vitally important which is European defense and security.”

(Reporting by David Marditste; writing by Michael Holden; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)

Russia names Putin’s new ‘super weapons’ after a quirky public vote

FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin stands with a gun at a shooting gallery of the new GRU military intelligence headquarters building as he visits it in Moscow November 8, 2006.

By Andrew Osborn

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia has unveiled the names for a new generation of nuclear-powered missiles touted by President Vladimir Putin as invincible after more than seven million people took part in a quirky public vote organized by the Russian military.

The names chosen include ‘Peresvet,’ after a medieval warrior monk, for a laser and ‘Burevestnik,’ after a seabird, for a cruise missile.

The arms systems, which Putin revealed in a bellicose state-of-the-nation speech this month, include a nuclear-powered cruise missile, an underwater nuclear-powered drone, and a laser weapon.

Putin has often used militaristic rhetoric to mobilize support and buttress his narrative that Russia is under siege from the West, and some critics complain that public discourse increasingly resembles that of a country at war.

The culmination of the “name that weapon” vote comes amid fears in both Russia and the West about a new arms race, something Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump have said they don’t want, and after Putin won a landslide re-election victory.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence asked the public to name the weapons systems in an online vote, something it has never done before, and unveiled the results late on Thursday on state TV.

After the results were announced, Deputy Defence Minister Yuri Borisov explained on state TV, to ripples of applause, what the new weapons were capable of.

WARRIOR MONK, GREEK GOD AND SEABIRD

The defense ministry said Russians had voted to name the new military laser ‘Peresvet’ after a medieval warrior monk, Alexander Peresvet, who took part in a 14th century battle against the Mongols. Peresvet is revered by some clerics in the Russian Orthodox Church, whose influence has grown under Putin.

The winning name for the underwater nuclear drone was more conventional – ‘Poseidon’ after the Greek god of the sea, drawing criticism from some Russians who complained the name was too foreign.

The new nuclear-powered cruise missile, which Putin has boasted could hit almost any point in the world and evade a U.S.-built missile shield, will be called ‘Burevestnik,’ Russian for the Storm Petrel bird, the defense ministry said.

The Storm Petrel is a seabird whose presence mariners believe foretells bad weather.

Putin’s boasts about the new weapons have been greeted with scepticism in Washington, where officials have cast doubt on whether Russia has added any new capabilities to its nuclear arsenal beyond those already known to the U.S. military and intelligence agencies.

Among the suggested names for the weapons systems that did not make the final cut: ‘Stalin,’ after the Soviet dictator, and ‘Palmyra,’ after the Syrian city which Russian forces helped Syrian President Bashar al-Assad take back from Islamic State.

(Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

Identical twins and ‘carousels’: Russia’s fairground election

Ludmila Sklyarevskaya, who denied voting multiple times, casting a ballot at polling station number 215 (L) and casting a ballot at polling station number 216, in Ust-Djeguta. REUTERS/Staff

UST-DJEGUTA, Russia (Reuters) – Ludmila Sklyarevskaya, a Russian hospital administrator, voted on Sunday in an election that gave Vladimir Putin another term as Russia’s president.

Then she went to another polling station and voted again, according to Reuters reporters who witnessed her movements.

Sklyarevskaya, who denied any wrongdoing, was among 17 people who were photographed by Reuters apparently casting ballots at more than one polling station Sunday in the town of Ust-Djeguta, southern Russia.

Many appeared to be state employees, and some showed up in groups and in mini buses bearing the names of state-provided services.

An employee at the hospital where Sklyarevskaya worked confirmed the woman captured in photos at the two polling stations was Sklyarevskaya and identified her as the hospital’s deputy director of health and safety.

Voting twice is a misdemeanor under Russian law, carrying a penalty of a fine. Shown pictures of some of the people who apparently voted twice, including at Ust-Djeguta’s polling station no. 217, Leila Koichuyeva, a member of the election commission there, said: “They could be twins.”

Sklyarevskaya, when it was pointed out she had been seen voting at polling stations 216 and 215, said “that’s not me.”

Reuters was able to speak to seven of 17 people photographed casting multiple votes. They either denied voting more than once or declined to comment.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there were established procedures for reporting election violations. “If these reports from the respected Reuters agency are backed up by corresponding statements to law enforcement agencies from the observers who were at each polling station, then it’s a worry. If they are not backed up, then it does not worry us at all.”

A voter casting a ballot at a polling station number 216 (L) and approaching a box before casting a ballot at a polling station number 217, in Ust-Djeguta, Russia. REUTERS/Staff

A voter casting a ballot at a polling station number 216 (L) and approaching a box before casting a ballot at a polling station number 217, in Ust-Djeguta, Russia. REUTERS/Staff

Putin’s opponents, and independent election observers, say Sunday’s vote was skewed across the country by officials loyal to Putin using a variety of tricks to inflate the turnout.

Putin is genuinely popular but a low turnout caused by apathy at a one-sided contest would have deprived him of the resounding mandate he sought. In the end, he won by a landslide and on a strong turnout of nearly 70 percent.

As well as multiple voting in Ust-Djeguta – a practice known in Russia as a “carousel” – Reuters reporters who monitored 12 polling stations around the country witnessed other irregularities though they were mostly narrow in scale.

In all 12 polling stations, the turnout declared by election officials exceeded a tally kept by Reuters of how many people voted. In one case in Simferopol the difference between the two figures was significant: 528 votes, or 66 percent of the votes cast.

Reuters reporters also uncovered a loophole in the voter registration system that could allow multiple voting by obtaining authorization to vote in more than one location. Under a new system designed to make it easier for people to vote when away from home, a voter can apply online to register temporarily at a different polling station. Three Reuters reporters who registered through the new system as well as at their local election office were able to vote once and then get the go-ahead by officials to vote a second time at a different polling station.

A Central Election Commission spokeswoman didn’t respond to a request for comment.

A voter casting a ballot at a polling station number 217 (L) and casting a ballot at a polling station number 216, in Ust-Djeguta, Russia. REUTERS/Staf

A voter casting a ballot at a polling station number 217 (L) and casting a ballot at a polling station number 216, in Ust-Djeguta, Russia. REUTERS/Staff

 

MEDICAL HELP

On election day in Ust-Djeguta, Sklyarevskaya arrived just after 17:30 local time (10.30 a.m. ET), leading a group of eight other women and one man through the gates of polling station number 216.

About twenty minutes later, Reuters reporters observed the same group voting again a few hundred meters away at polling station no. 215.

Several of the women with her were wearing surgical scrubs, and the man wore a jacket with the word “ambulance” written on it. Ust-Djeguta, a town of 30,000 people and 1,500 km (930 miles) south of Moscow, has only one hospital, the state-run Central District Hospital.

In an interview next to her office on the hospital’s fourth floor, Sklyarevskaya said she had voted only once, at a third polling station, number 217. “Who directed you to do this investigation?” she asked when approached by Reuters reporters. “You do not have the right to get involved in the electoral system.”

Marat Shakmanov, head doctor at the hospital, said he didn’t believe anyone from the hospital violated election rules.

Another woman, wearing sparkly heels, also appeared to vote twice on Sunday.

When approached by Reuters in the town hall on Monday, the woman said her name was Jamila Tebueva, a social-care specialist in the town administration. She said she voted only once, and went to a second polling station to accompany friends.

When told she had been photographed with a voting slip in her hand at the second location she said: “Is it alright if I don’t reply?”

Zukhra Chomaeva, the head election official at polling station number 217, said she could not answer for what happened outside her precinct when asked about multiple voting.

“How do I know if they’re the same person? They might look the same.”

Larissa Tekeyeva, head of the election commission for polling station 216, said after looking at a picture of a woman in a pink coat who voted at polling stations 216 and 217: “We all have the same mentality. We all look alike.”

Ludmila Djukayeva, head of the town’s polling station 215, said she hadn’t witnessed any multiple voting. Ruslan Shagarov, a spokesman for the town administration, said he knew nothing about any employees breaking voting rules.

Official results released on Monday showed the three polling stations had an average turnout of 81.5 percent and delivered a majority for Putin of 89.86 percent. National turnout was 67 percent, according to the central election commission.

TURNOUT DISCREPANCIES

Reuters reporters used mechanical counters to count everybody who cast a ballot at the 12 polling stations they monitored from open to close on Sunday.

In some places, the discrepancies between the official count and the Reuters tally were small, with local election officials putting it down to the margin of error. But in nine of the 12 polling stations, the discrepancies were 10% or greater.

The biggest divergence, as a share of the total vote, was in polling station number 265, inside a technical college in Simferopol, Crimea. Moscow annexed the region from Ukraine four years ago.

Reuters reporters saw 797 voters at that station, while the official figures state that 1,325 people voted on the day and in person.

Asked about the discrepancy, the chairwoman of the polling station’s election commission, Oksana Mediyeva, said independent monitors had watched the vote and had raised no issues.

The three monitors, two from the governing party and one who said he would vote for Putin, didn’t appear to be keeping count of the turnout.

Typically in elections, the official turnout figures are produced when election tellers count the number of ballots cast.

But in three polling stations, in Ust-Djeguta and in Simferopol, the election officials weren’t seen physically counting all the ballot papers.

At Ust-Djeguta’s polling station number 216, a count revealed there were not enough ballot papers to tally with the figure for Putin votes, of 1,299, that officials there had provisionally penciled in.

After a recount produced the same outcome, the election officials said they were going home.

When a Reuters reporter asked how they could do that without finishing the count, Tatiana Chernyaeva, the director of the school hosting the polling station, said: “You want to cast doubt on Putin’s victory.”

 

FLAWED SYSTEM

Under the new registration system the three Reuters reporters were able to register online to vote in one location and also obtain authorization to vote in another location by using the old procedure of going to the local election office where they are resident.

All three reporters were offered a ballot paper in their second location after they had already voted in their first, though none cast a second vote.

Djukayeva the head of the election commission at polling station 215, where one of the reporters was offered a ballot to cast a second vote, said: “I don’t know whose mistake that was …. They gave us lists yesterday of voters who should be included and excluded.” She was in the list to be included, Djukayeva added.

(Reporting by Maria Tsvetkova, Polina Nikolskaya, Tatiana Voronova and Polina Ivanova in UST-DJEGUTA; Olesya Astakhova, Olga Sichkar, Alla Afanasyeva and Kevin O’Flynn in SIMFEROPOL; Vladimir Soldatkin, Jack Stubbs and Gleb Stolyarov in KEMEROVO; Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber, Darya Korsunskaya and Anastasia Lyrchikova in ZELENODOLSK; Maxim Rodionov, Andrey Kuzmin and Andrey Ostroukh in GRYAZI.; Writing by Maria Tsvetkova and Christian Lowe; Editing by Cassell Bryan-Low)

Inspectors analyze toxin used on Russian spy, EU backs Britain

A police notice is attached to screening surrounding a restaurant which was visited by former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia before they were found on a park bench after being poisoned in Salisbury, Britain, March 19, 2018. REUTERS/Peter Nichol

By Alex Fraser and Peter Nicholls

SALISBURY, England (Reuters) – Inspectors from the world’s chemical weapons watchdog on Monday began examining the poison used to strike down a former Russian double agent in England, in an attack that London blames on Moscow.

Britain says Sergei Skripal and his daughter, who are critically ill in hospital, were targeted with the Soviet-era military-grade nerve agent Novichok. It accuses Moscow of stockpiling the toxin and investigating how to use it in assassinations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who easily won another six-year term on Sunday, said the claims were nonsense and that Russia had destroyed all its chemical weapons. While the Kremlin told Britain to back up its assertions or apologize, Britain’s fellow EU members offered it “unqualified solidarity”.

Skripal, a former colonel in Russian military intelligence who betrayed dozens of Russian agents to Britain, was found collapsed along with his daughter on a bench in the small southern city of Salisbury two weeks ago.

The identification of Novichok as the weapon has become the central pillar of Britain’s case for Russia’s culpability. Each has expelled 23 of the other’s diplomats as their relations have sunk to a post-Cold War low.

On Monday, inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) began running independent tests on samples taken from Salisbury to verify the British analysis, said an OPCW source speaking on condition of anonymity.

“The team from The Hague will meet with officials from the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory and the police to discuss the process for collecting samples, including environmental ones,” Britain’s Foreign Office said.

Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson arrives at an European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels, Belgium, March 19, 2018. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

Britain’s Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson arrives at an European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels, Belgium, March 19, 2018. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

“ABSURD DENIALS”

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said on Monday, before meeting his European Union counterparts in Brussels, that Russian denials of responsibility were “increasingly absurd”.

“This is a classic Russian strategy of trying to conceal the needle of truth in a haystack of lies and obfuscation. They’re not fooling anybody any more,” Johnson told reporters.

“There is scarcely a country around the table here in Brussels that has not been affected in recent years by some kind of malign or disruptive Russian behavior.”

EU diplomats cautioned there was no immediate prospect of fresh economic sanctions on Russia, but the assembled EU foreign ministers did offer strong verbal support.

“The European Union takes extremely seriously the UK government’s assessment that it is highly likely that the Russian Federation is responsible,” said their statement.

They said using a nerve agent for the first time on European soil for 70 years would be a clear violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, which the OPCW safeguards, and that it represented a “security threat to us all”.

(Reporting by Anthony Deutsch in Amsterdam and Robin Emmott and Alistair MacDonald in Brussels; Writing by Michael Holden; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Kevin Liffey)

U.S. hints at shift on Russia with sanctions and condemnation

National flags of Russia and the U.S. fly at Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow, Russia April 11, 2017. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

By Arshad Mohammed and John Walcott

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – By imposing new sanctions on Russia and condemning a suspected Russian chemical attack in Britain, Washington has hinted at a tougher stance toward Moscow despite President Donald Trump’s stated desire for better ties.

The U.S. Treasury slapped sanctions on 19 Russian citizens and five entities for election meddling and cyber attacks in the most significant steps the United States has taken against Russia since Trump took office amid U.S. intelligence agency allegations that Moscow tried to help him win the 2016 election.

While the Treasury put off targeting oligarchs and officials close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, it said further sanctions were coming and for the first time blamed Moscow for cyber attacks stretching back at least two years that targeted the U.S. power grid, including nuclear facilities.

After initially equivocating about a chemical attack on a former Russian double agent in Salisbury, England, the White House joined a statement by the leaders of Britain, France and Germany in which they said they “abhor the attack” and blamed it on Moscow.

Moscow has denied any involvement in the poisoning.

Thursday’s actions have caused some Russia analysts to ask whether the administration is taking a more confrontational stance despite Trump’s repeated statements in the election campaign that he wanted a better relationship with Moscow, his praise for Putin and apparent reluctance to criticize the Russian leader.

“I think we have hit an inflection point in the current administration’s approach towards Russia,” said a diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity. “There has been a shift in balance.”

The diplomat attributed the evolution partly to a clash between U.S.-backed and Russian-backed forces in the Syrian city of Deir al-Zor in February; Russia pounding Syria’s eastern Ghouta enclave of anti-government rebels with air strikes during the past month; and Putin showing a video on March 1 of a weapon appearing to hover over what looked like a map of Florida, home to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

“Those three things, taken together, have caused a shift in analysis in parts … of the administration,” said the diplomat.

TRUMP EXASPERATED

While there was a sense at the White House that there has been a hardening of Trump’s view toward Russia, at least for now, it was unclear whether this represented a long-term shift.

A senior administration official said there was some feeling that the goodwill that Trump extended toward Russia when he took over has not been reciprocated and that the Russians do not want to have good relations with the United States.

This has exasperated Trump, who instructed his team to make sure the United States appeared to be in solidarity with Britain over the nerve agent attack.

Eugene Rumer, a former U.S. national intelligence officer for Russia, suggested Trump’s approach may ultimately be guided by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether Russia meddled in the election campaign.

The Kremlin denies interfering. Mueller is also investigating any potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow officials, something Trump denies.

“My hypothesis is … the White House stance on Russia is going to be determined to a large extent by how much they think the investigation threatens their political position,” Rumer said.

Officials from multiple U.S. agencies discussed next steps at a meeting on Thursday, with one aim being to avoid personally attacking Putin and taking in-your-face steps that could prompt retaliation.

In announcing Thursday’s sanctions, U.S. officials made clear more would follow.

“This is just one of a series of ongoing actions that we’re taking to counter Russian aggression,” one U.S. official told reporters. “There will be more to come, and we’re going to continue to employ our resources to combat malicious Russian activity and respond to nefarious attacks.”

Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, were found unconscious on a bench outside a shopping center on March 4 after being exposed to what the British authorities have identified as a military-grade, Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent.

Another U.S. official attributed the sharper edge to U.S. policy to increasingly brazen behavior by Russia in cyberspace and on the ground, culminating in the Salisbury attack.

This U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also pointed to Russia’s refusal to restrain Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the role of Russian “mercenaries” in Syria, now entering its eighth year of civil war.

The official said it was unclear if Trump himself saw Russia as an adversary but suggested Putin may have “overplayed his hand” by leaving Russian fingerprints on the hacking, the chemical attack, the deployment of ground-launched cruise missiles which the U.S. says violate an arms control treaty, and a March 1 speech on “invincible” Russian weaponry.

“If the president felt like Putin was one-upping him, not to mention stealing the limelight, then it wouldn’t be surprising that he would react,” the official said.

While more sanctions are expected, it was not clear if the Trump policy toward Russia was changing, especially given Trump’s unpredictability, said a third official, who is involved in talks on next steps.

“Tomorrow is another day,” the official said.

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland and Warren Strobel; Writing by Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Grant McCool and Paul Tait)

Kremlin supporters pressure Russian election observers before vote

FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses the audience during a rally marking the fourth anniversary of Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol, Crimea, March 14, 2018. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo

By Andrew Osborn

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Police last month detained David Kankiya, an observer at Russia’s forthcoming presidential election, yards from his home in southern Russia. Police said his car may have been used in a crime, according to Kankiya.

Hours later, Kankiya was charged with disobeying the police, something he denies, and jailed for five days by a court. Weeks later, his car tyres were slashed with a knife, he says, and on Tuesday, pro-Kremlin journalists ambushed him.

“I have information that you have insulted the Russian people,” one of the journalists said, a video of the incident shows.

Days before Sunday’s election, which polls show incumbent Vladimir Putin is on track to win comfortably, Golos, a non-governmental organization that monitors Russian elections, says it is under unprecedented pressure.

Its problems are part of what Kremlin critics say is a wider campaign by authorities to hinder or silence dissenting voices.

Opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was shot dead in 2015, while current opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been barred from running in Sunday’s election over what he says is a trumped-up fraud conviction.

The Kremlin, which denies involvement in Nemtsov’s murder, wants Putin’s re-election to be viewed as legitimate and largely clean in the West so as not to further damage already poor relations. At home, wary of street protests, the Kremlin is keen that voters see it in the same way.

The Kremlin says complaints about a crackdown on dissent are hollow. Individual cases are a matter for the relevant authorities who it says are only trying to uphold the law.

Equally, the Central Election Commission says it will do everything it can to ensure Sunday’s vote is free of fraud and has turned to Golos for advice on how to do that.

However, opposition leader Navalny, accused by Putin of being Washington’s pick for president, has predicted the authorities will resort to widespread fraud to deliver a Putin landslide and has spoken of organizing post-election protests of the kind that roiled Russia after Putin’s last election victory in 2012.

Golos says the authorities unfairly blamed it for those protests — some of the biggest since the Soviet collapse — because of its work publicizing what it said were serious election violations, something it plans to do again on Sunday.

Kankiya, a Golos coordinator in the Krasnodar Region, says that’s why he was targeted.

“I was detained and charged on a false pretext,” Kankiya, 28, told Reuters by phone. “It’s political pressure.”

A court in Krasnodar disagrees. It rejected his appeal against his arrest and jailing on Wednesday. Police say he was detained after he failed to produce identification during a routine check.

‘FOREIGN AGENT’

Election fraud has been a problem in Russia since the 1991 Soviet collapse.

Abuses have often been highlighted by Golos, whose observers spend election day at polling stations and flag suspected cases of fraud to the authorities.

Founded in 2000, the year Putin won his first presidential term, Golos says its problems began when Putin returned to the presidency in 2012.

“After the 2012 election, their task was to destroy Golos,” Grigory Melkonyants, the movement’s co-chairman said in an interview in his Moscow office, referring to the authorities.

A month after the election, the tax inspectors came. And, in July that year, Putin approved a law that forced non-governmental organizations engaging in political activity to register with the justice ministry as “foreign agents.”

Golos lost one of its main donors in 2012 when Moscow accused the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)of trying to influence politics and forced it to leave.

Soon, weighed down by the red tape that came with being designated a “foreign agent” and facing a funding squeeze, Golos was struggling to function. In July 2016, at the behest of the justice ministry, a court ordered Golos to close.

Today, Golos still operates after reconfiguring its structure in such a way that it is not classified as a legal entity.

PRESSURE

A shoe-string operation run out of a pokey Moscow office staffed by about nine volunteers, it says it relies on private donations from inside Russia.

It has coordinators in almost half of Russia’s voting regions, about 6,000 volunteers, and dozens of experts who train people how to observe elections.

Melkonyants says the movement on Sunday plans to field thousands of observers, run a telephone hot line for complaints, and chronicle reports of electoral abuses on a nationwide violations map on its website. It will deliver its verdict on how clean the election was on Monday.

But as election day draws near, pressure on Golos is intensifying.

Its volunteers have complained of being systematically stopped for long periods when leaving or entering the country by border staff who tell them there’s a note by their name that says they are linked to terrorism, Golos says.

REN TV, a Russian TV channel, on Monday broadcast what it billed as a special investigation into Golos and other groups. The program depicted Golos as a shadowy Western-funded group that worked to discredit Russia in the eyes of the world.

Andrei Klimov, a senator who heads up a committee in the upper house of parliament to prevent interference in Russia’s internal affairs, told the program such groups posed a threat.

“They (Golos and other groups) will try to trigger protest,” said Klimov.

And on Thursday, Golos said the landlord of a hall in Moscow it had agreed to rent for a call center on election day had annulled the rental contract after being told by the police to back out of the contract or face problems.

Kankiya, the Golos coordinator in southern Russia, said he would continue his work regardless.

“We’re the only election observation movement in Russia capable of operating on a large scale,” said Kankiya. “Many people don’t like that.”

(Editing by Cassell Bryan-Low)

Russia to expel UK diplomats as crisis over nerve toxin attack deepens

A coat of arms is seen on a gate outside of the Russian embassy in London, Britain, March 16, 2018. REUTERS/Toby Melv

By Olzhas Auyezov and Guy Faulconbridge

ASTANA/LONDON (Reuters) – Russia is set to expel British diplomats in retaliation for Prime Minister Theresa May’s decision to kick out 23 Russians as relations with London crashed to a post-Cold War low over an attack with military-grade nerve agent on English soil.

After the first known offensive use of such a weapon in Europe since World War Two, May blamed Moscow and gave 23 Russians who she said were spies working under diplomatic cover at the London embassy a week to leave.

Russia has denied any involvement, cast Britain as a post-colonial power unsettled by Brexit, and even suggested London fabricated the attack in an attempt to whip up anti-Russian hysteria.

Asked by a Reuters reporter in the Kazakh capital if Russia planned to expel British diplomats from Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov smiled and said: “We will, of course.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia could announce its response at any minute.

Britain, the United States, Germany and France jointly called on Russia on Thursday to explain the attack. U.S. President Donald Trump said it looked as though the Russians were behind it.

A German government spokesman called the attack “an immense, appalling event”. Chancellor Angela Merkel said an EU summit next week would discuss the issue, in the first instance to seek clarity, and that any boycott of the soccer World Cup, which Russia is hosting in June and July, was not an immediate priority.

INDEPENDENT VERIFICATION

Russia has refused Britain’s demands to explain how Novichok, a nerve agent developed by the Soviet military, was used to strike down Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, in the southern English city of Salisbury.

Britain has written to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague, which monitors compliance with the global convention outlawing the use of such weapons, to obtain independent verification of the substance used.

Skripal, a former colonel in the GRU who betrayed dozens of Russian agents to British intelligence, and his daughter have been critically ill since March 4, when they were found unconscious on a bench.

A British policeman was also poisoned when he went to help them is, and is in a serious but stable condition.

British investigators are working on the theory that an item of clothing or cosmetics or a gift in the luggage of Skripal’s daughter was impregnated with the toxin, and then opened in Skripal’s house in Salisbury, the Daily Telegraph said.

President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB spy who is poised to win a fourth term in an election on Sunday, has so far only said publicly that Britain should get to the bottom of what has happened.

In a sign of just how tense the relationship has become, British and Russian ministers used openly insulting language while the Russian ambassador said London was trying to divert attention from the difficulties it was having managing Britain’s exit from the European Union.

“SHOCKING AND UNFORGIVABLE”

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Britain had no quarrel with the Russian people but that it was overwhelmingly likely that Putin himself took the decision to deploy the nerve toxin in England.

“We have nothing against the Russians themselves. There is to be no Russophobia as a result of what is happening,” he said.

“Our quarrel is with Putin’s Kremlin, and with his decision – and we think it overwhelmingly likely that it was his decision – to direct the use of a nerve agent on the streets of the UK.”

The Kremlin’s Peskov called the allegation that Putin was involved “a shocking and unforgivable breach of the diplomatic rules of decent behavior”, TASS news agency reported.

British Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson sparked particular outrage in Moscow with his blunt comment on Thursday that “Russia should go away, it should shut up.”

Russia’s Defence Ministry said he was an “intellectual impotent” and Lavrov said he probably lacked education. Williamson studied social science at the University of Bradford.

“Well he’s a nice man, I’m told, maybe he wants to claim a place in history by making some bold statements,” Lavrov said. “Maybe he lacks education, I don’t know.”

In London, opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn struck a starkly different tone to that of the British government by warning against rushing into a new Cold War before full evidence of Moscow’s culpability was proven.

Corbyn said Labour did not support Putin and that Russia should be held to account if it was behind the attack.

“That does not mean we should resign ourselves to a ‘new cold war’ of escalating arms spending, proxy conflicts across the globe and a McCarthyite intolerance of dissent,” he said.

(Additional reporting by William James, David Milliken and Kate Holton in London, and Maria Tsvetkova, Jack Stubbs and Andrew Osborn in Moscow; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Only Russia could be behind U.K. poison attack: toxin’s co-developer

Vil Mirzayanov, the former Soviet scientist who developed the chemical agent Novichok, is pictured in Princeton, New Jersey, United States March 13, 2018. REUTERS/Hussein al Waaile

By Joseph Ax

PRINCETON, N.J. (Reuters) – A Russian chemist who helped develop the Soviet-era nerve agent used to poison a former Russian double agent in southern England said only the Russian government could have carried out the attack with such a deadly and advanced toxin.

Vil Mirzayanov, 83, said he had no doubt that Russian President Vladimir Putin was responsible, given that Russia maintains tight control over its Novichok stockpile and that the agent is too complicated for a non-state actor to have weaponized.

“The Kremlin all the time, like all criminals, denying – it doesn’t mean anything,” Mirzayanov said in an interview in his home in Princeton, New Jersey, where he has lived in exile for more than 20 years.

Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military intelligence agent who betrayed dozens of Russian agents to British intelligence, and his daughter are fighting for their lives after they were found on March 4 collapsed on a bench, having been poisoned with Novichok, according to British authorities.

British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Monday that it was “highly likely” that Putin was behind the attack, a charge Russia denies.

May on Tuesday gave Russia a midnight deadline to explain how the toxin showed up in the southern England cathedral city of Salisbury.

Russian officials have described the British allegations of Kremlin involvement as a “circus show.” They say Britain has produced no concrete evidence that the Russian state was involved, has refused to share technical information about the poisoning with Russian scientists, and is bent on discrediting Russia before its hosts the soccer World Cup in June and July.

‘NOBODY KNEW’

Mirzayanov said he spent years testing and improving Novichok, the name given to a group of chemical weapons that Russia secretly created during the latter stages of the Cold War. The weapon is more than 10 times as powerful as the more commonly known VX, another nerve agent.

The program eventually produced tons of the agent, the dissident said, which Russia has never acknowledged.

“Novichok was invented and studied and experimented and many tons were produced only in Russia. Nobody knew in this world,” Mirzayanov said in an interview Tuesday at his home in a leafy suburb 35 miles (56 km) southwest of New York City.

In the early 1990s, as countries around the world began signing the Chemical Weapons Convention, a multinational arms treaty to prevent the development and use of chemical weapons, Mirzayanov grew angry that Russia was hiding Novichok’s existence.

He was fired and jailed after detailing the new generation of chemical weapons in a news article, though the charges were eventually dismissed under pressure from Western officials.

He moved to the United States, where he published a book exposing what he knew about Russia’s covert Cold War chemical weapons program.

The effort involved as many as 30,000 or 40,000 people, he said, including perhaps 1,000 who worked on Novichok specifically, though many were not aware of the program’s true nature.

The agent can be synthesized by mixing harmless compounds together. That made it easier for Russia to produce materials for Novichok under the cover of manufacturing agricultural chemicals, he said.

Novichok attacks the nervous system, making it impossible for victims to breathe and causing unimaginable pain, said Mirzayanov, who watched countless lab animals, including mice, rats and dogs, subjected to the poison.

“It’s torture,” he said. “It’s absolutely incurable.”

Mirzayanov said Putin likely chose to use a painful nerve agent to frighten other dissidents into silence.

“I was shocked,” he said. “I never imagined even in my bad dreams that this chemical weapon, developed with my participation, would be used as a terrorist weapons.”

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Scott Malone and Lisa Shumaker)

UK’s May says ‘highly likely’ Russia behind nerve attack on spy

Members of the emergency services wearing protective suits work at a site in Winterslow, near Salisbury, Britain, March 12, 2018. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls

By Alistair Smout and Michael Holden

LONDON (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Monday it was “highly likely” that Moscow was responsible for the poisoning in England of Russian former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter using a military-grade nerve agent.

May told parliament that either the Russian state was directly responsible for the poisoning or it had allowed the nerve agent to get into the hands of others. London has given Russia until Wednesday to explain its use.

British officials had identified the substance as being part of the Novichok group of nerve agents which were developed by the Soviet military during the 1970s and 1980s, May said.

“Should there be no credible response, we will conclude that this action amounts to an unlawful use of force by the Russian state against the United Kingdom,” May said, calling the attack a “reckless and despicable act.”

Russia’s foreign ministry hit back immediately, saying May’s comments were a “circus show” and part of a political information campaign against Russia.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration stood by America’s “closest ally”.

“The use of a highly lethal nerve agent against UK citizens on UK soil is an outrage,” Sanders said. “The attack was reckless, indiscriminate and irresponsible. We offer the fullest condemnation.”

Skripal, 66, and his 33-year-old daughter Yulia, have been in hospital in a critical condition since being found unconscious on a bench outside a shopping center in the city of Salisbury on March 4.

Relations between Britain and Russia have been strained since the murder in London of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko who died in 2006 after drinking green tea laced with radioactive polonium-210.

On Monday, May said the latest poisoning took place “against a backdrop of a well-established pattern of Russian state aggression” and that Britain was ready to take “much more extensive measures” against Russia than in the past.

Russia’s ambassador to London has been summoned to explain to British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson how the nerve agent came to have been used.

“On Wednesday we will consider in detail the response from the Russian state,” May said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin brushed off a question about the affair while visiting a grain center in southern Russia, saying British authorities should first “get to the bottom of things”, the BBC’s Moscow correspondent wrote on Twitter.

Russian state TV accused Britain of poisoning Skripal as part of a special operation designed to spoil Russia’s hosting of the soccer World Cup this summer.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Skripal worked for British intelligence and the attack happened in Britain so it was not a matter for the Russian government.

A British policeman who was one of the first to attend to the stricken spy was also affected by the nerve agent. He is now conscious in a serious but stable condition, police said.

Skripal is a former colonel in Russia’s GRU military intelligence who was convicted of passing secrets to Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency and later exchanged in a spy swap.

The chairman of the British parliament’s foreign affairs committee, Tom Tugendhat, said Russia’s so-called oligarchs, who have amassed fortunes during Putin’s 18-year rule, should be denied entry to the luxuries of London and the West.

The British capital has been dubbed “Londongrad” due to the large quantities of Russian money that have poured in since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

May last year said Putin was seeking to undermine the West and the international order by meddling in elections, and promised to ensure corrupt money did not flow into Britain from Russia.

A British public inquiry found the 2006 killing of Litvinenko had probably been approved by Putin and carried out by two Russians, Dmitry Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoy – a former KGB bodyguard who later became a member of the Russian parliament.

Cordons remained in place in the center of Salisbury and some police investigators wore full chemical and biological suits. The army was later deployed to help remove items from the scene.

Health officials said there was no wider risk to public health.

Jenny Harries, deputy medical director at Public Health England, suggested members of the public who had visited the same restaurant and pub as Skripal and his daughter on March 4 should wash their clothes, clean phones and bags with baby wipes and wash items such as jewelry and spectacles with warm water and detergent.

(Additional reporting by Andrew Osborn in Moscow and Jonathan Shenfield and Alex Fraser in Salisbury, England; Writing by William Schomberg; Editing by Richard Balmforth and Catherine Evans)

UK says it will respond robustly to nerve agent attack on Russian ex-spy

FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin stands with a gun at a shooting gallery of the new GRU military intelligence headquarters building as he visits it in Moscow November 8, 2006.

By Estelle Shirbon

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain will methodically work out who carried out a nerve agent attack on a Russian ex-spy and his daughter, then take robust action, interior minister Amber Rudd said on Thursday.

Former double agent Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, have been in hospital since they were found unconscious on Sunday on a bench outside a shopping center in the southern English city of Salisbury.

“Both remain unconscious, and in a critical but stable condition,” Home Secretary Rudd told parliament.

Sergei Skripal, a former colonel of Russia's GRU military intelligence service, looks on inside the defendants' cage as he attends a hearing at the Moscow military district court, Russia. Kommersant/Yuri Senatorov via REUTER

Sergei Skripal, a former colonel of Russia’s GRU military intelligence service, looks on inside the defendants’ cage as he attends a hearing at the Moscow military district court, Russia. Kommersant/Yuri Senatorov via REUTERS

British media and some politicians have speculated that the Russian state could be behind the attack – suggestions dismissed by Moscow as knee-jerk, anti-Russian propaganda.

“The use of a nerve agent on UK soil is a brazen and reckless act. This was attempted murder in the most cruel and public way,” Rudd said.

“But if we are to be rigorous in this investigation, we must avoid speculation and allow the police to carry on their investigation.”

Despite her call, several lawmakers pointed the finger at Russia during their questions to Rudd, with some calling for investigations to be re-opened into the deaths of Russian exiles in Britain in recent years.

Rudd rebuffed them, urging people to keep a cool head and saying the focus should remain on the Salisbury incident.

“We will respond in a robust and appropriate manner once we ascertain who was responsible,” she said. “We are committed to do all we can to bring the perpetrators to justice, whoever they are and wherever they may be.”

DOUBLE AGENT

Police said on Wednesday that a nerve agent was used against Skripal and Yulia. A British police officer who was also harmed by the substance was now able to talk to people although he remained in a serious condition, Rudd said.

Scientific tests by government experts have identified the specific nerve agent used, which will help identify the source, but authorities have refused to disclose the details.

Skripal betrayed dozens of Russian agents to British intelligence before his arrest by Russian authorities in 2004. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2006, and in 2010 was given refuge in Britain after being exchanged for Russian spies.

The attack on him has been likened in Britain to the assassination of ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, a critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who died in London in 2006 after drinking green tea laced with radioactive polonium-210.

A British public inquiry later said Litvinenko’s murder had probably been approved by Putin and carried out by two Russians, Dmitry Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoy, an ex-KGB bodyguard who later became a member of parliament.

Both men denied any responsibility and Russia has refused to extradite them to stand trial.

Rudd was pressed during a BBC radio interview earlier on whether Britain had been too soft on Russia following the Litvinenko murder, sending out a message that such acts could be carried out with impunity.

She denied this and hinted that if Russia turned out to be implicated in the attack on Skripal, action would be taken against it.

“We are absolutely robust about any crimes committed on these streets in the UK. There is nothing soft about the UK’s response to any sort of state activity in this country,” she said.

(Additional reporting by Sarah Young, Alistair Smout and Michael Holden; Editing by Stephen Addison)