Most of the those, if not all of them, who write or speak of the poisoning of the double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, be they politicians, experts of journalists, don’t know who may have done it or what may have been their motives. Only guesses. I am in the same position. The media is offering differing scenarios of modus operandi. Those may have been the flowers on the tomb of Skripal’s wife, the handle of the front door his house, parts of his car, the cloths of the daughter, who had just flown in from Moscow, or a package of buckwheat brought from Russia, through which the poison may have found its way into the bodies of the victims.

       However, one thing for the British politicians has been clear and certain from the outset. Russia was the culprit and it was President Vladimir Putin personally who had ordered it. This certainty of Prime Minister Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was picked up by the mainstream Western media as well as Britain’s NATO and EU allies, most of which were acting according to the principle ‘we stand with our ally, right or wrong’. I am eager to know what would have been those proofs, besides ‘no other plausible explanation’, that Theresa May whispered into the ears of President Macron and Chancellor Merkel, later presenting them to other heads of EU member-states, that could justify the expulsion of Russian diplomats from most EU and NATO countries. My guess is that there was even less ‘hard evidence’ than in February 2003 Colin Powell’s presentation to the UN Security Council on Iraqi WMD programmes. However, back then the predecessors of Macron and Merkel, respectively Chirac and Schroeder, were not so easily convinced. And rightly so, as it turned out.

       Such media trial, where who-has-done-it is known well before questions such as how and why it had been done would be answered, is especially surprising in the light of the English judicial practice. So, in the Docklands bombing case in London, the judge of the Woolwich Crown Court in the 1999 trial dismissed the jury and the case because The Sun had just a day before published information that could have been prejudicial for the fair trial. The newspaper was fined for 35,000 pounds for the contempt of court. In the current case of poisoning, however, British top politicians as well as the media have already created an atmosphere in which impartial enquiry into the case seems to be almost impossible. Everybody, who even cautiously expresses doubts about the certainty of the involvement of the Russian authorities in the crime, like the leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn, is accused, to use Boris Johnson’s words, of ‘playing Russia’s game’. Can one in sound mind and with a minimum knowledge of international politics imagine that Theresa May, Boris Johnson or others, who have accused Russia and its President in most certain and offensive terms of having committed this crime, would suddenly start back-pedalling or covering their heads with ashes. Not only in the case when no proof of Kremlin’s involvement will be found, but even if strong evidence would indicate in an opposite direction. Those, who on the trumped-up charges in 2003 invaded Iraq (Saddam’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction and his altogether implausible links with Al Qaida) or who in 2011 destroyed Libya, have not made any excuses. On the contrary, quite a few of them are still around and active in their fight for the ‘liberal international order’.

       In addition to such a putting-the-cart-before-the-horse approach, i.e. publicly announcing the perpetrator of the crime before the enquiry into the details of the offence, the Skripal case has many other unusual and bewildering aspects. Starting from the times of Roman empire, lawyers and investigators have always asked: cui bono, who benefits from the crime. In the Skripal case, certainly, it is not Russia. What the country and its leadership need the least is the additional surge of the tension with the West, continuation and intensification of anti-Russian sanctions. The claims that by killing its agents, who betray the motherland, Russia discourages others to follow suit, seems to be so far-fetched and mind-blogging that it simply cannot be taken seriously. Even more so in the case of Sergei Skripal. He was found guilty by a Russian court, later pardoned and exchanged for Russian spies caught in America. There are quite a few other much more high-profile Russian turncoats in the West, including in the UK, like the two Olegs – Gordievsky and Kalugin. The former was a one-time KGB resident in London, while the latter had been a high-ranking KGB general. They have not been pardoned or exchanged. Killing Skripal, who had been subject to a spy-exchange, would not have been only counter-productive but simply absurd. From this crime, and it is a serious crime whoever may have committed it, have only benefitted those who hate Russia and wish her ill. And there are quite a few of those in the West, or aspiring to be accepted into the Ligue like Ukraine, who are lining up either to expel Russian diplomats, or to thwart the building of gas pipelines, or even calling for non-participation in the soccer World Cup in Russia. Theresa May and Boris Johnson, who were just recently criticised, both in Europe and particularly in Britain, for the disastrous Brexit process, have even found some acceptability, if not respectability. Gone are from the front pages stories about the machinations of the Cambridge Analytica – a British company that had been instrumental in tilting the public opinion in favour of Brexit (OK, this is an internal British matter) and interfering in the latest American presidential elections (surprise, surprise, there aren’t any calls for sanctions against Britain for such a brazen interference in the ‘democratic process’ in America).

       This leads to my following point. The West has accused Russia of having committed many sins, violating international law here and there. Still, whether one would welcome or condemn, either from the legal, moral or even geopolitical point of view, acts such as the 2014 annexation by/reunification with Russia of the Crimea; Kremlin’s support for those in Eastern Ukraine, who rebelled against the regime in Kiev; or Russia’s role in Syria, these are all rational, though often reactive, activities. Russia is protecting its national interests, as they are understood not only by its leadership but also by most of its people, even if sometimes overstepping constraints of international law. And when led mainly by geopolitical considerations, Moscow is even then trying to keep its behaviour as close to the confines of law as possible. So, using its military in the Crimea in March 2014 to prevent the foreseeable bloodshed and also providing secure conditions for the referendum on the status of the peninsular, Russia intervened in domestic affairs of Ukraine. However, the referendum and its results serve as attenuating circumstances for this somewhat light-hearted approach to international law. Especially, if we compare it with the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia leading to the de facto severing Kosovo from Serbia, or with the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Ukraine’s NATO membership and the US navy in Sebastopol would have indeed been an existential threat for Russia. In that case, the Kremlin could have quoted Dean Acheson – a distinguished American diplomat and lawyer, the Secretary of State from 1949 to 1953 – who commenting the Cuban missile crisis said: ‘The power, position and prestige of the United States had been chal-lenged by another state; and law simply does not deal with such questions of ultimate power–power that comes close to sources of sovereignty.' [1] As Doug Bandow has recently written: ‘The United States views expansion of NATO up to Russia’s borders as the natural evolution of American global domination. Moscow considers the incorporation of Ukraine into the alliance created to constrain Russia as a security threat, rather as Washington might view Mexico’s entry into the Warsaw Pact’. [2] However, in contradistinction to Acheson, the Kremlin chose not to dismiss international law in such a brazen manner in favour of power-politics. Therefore, attempting to kill an ex-double agent using a nerve-gas of Russian origin on the British soil is simply beyond comprehension. It would have been a crime committed with one purpose only – to get caught.

       Then there is the argument of ‘no other plausible explanation’ that has been a constant accompaniment of accusing Russia of poisoning the Skripals. Even when Boris Johnson was caught lying that the Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down had confirmed that this had been ‘a military-grade Novichok nerve agent produced in Russia’ that had poisoned the victims, the Foreign Office still insisted that there was no other plausible explanation. Various explanations, some more plausible than others, are good for police enquiry, but are inadmissible for publicly accusing somebody of having committed a crime. To say nothing of the reversal of such rule of law principles as the presumption of innocence, or that the burden of proof always lies on the side that presents the claim, or that any doubt should benefit the accused.

       Whoever has done it for whatever motives is not yet, if it ever will be, clear. However, what is clear is that the case has been already used in full in the ongoing geopolitical fight of the US and its allies against Russia. It is a dangerous and irresponsible game.

       [1] D. Acheson, ‘The Cuban Quarantine – Implications for the Future’, Proceedings of the American Society of International Law, 1963, p. 14.

       [2] Doug Bandow, ‘The West Should Avoid Starting a New Cold War with Russia, The National Interest, 2 April 2018.

       Views expressed are of individual Members and Contributors, rather than the Club's, unless explicitly stated otherwise.