[ad_1]
LONDON (Reuters) – British chief of security Vladimir Putin is behind the attack on a former Russian spy and her daughter in Salisbury earlier this year.
PHOTO FILE: Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks at a press conference with his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinisto after their meeting at Bocharov Ruchei's residence in the seaside resort of Sochi in the Black Sea on August 22, 2018. Pavel Golovkin / Pool via Reuters / File Photo
Prime Minister Theresa May said police and prosecutors now believe that Sergei Skripal's attack was carried out by two Russian military intelligence agents who almost certainly acted with the approval of senior Russian officials.
Russia has repeatedly denied any involvement and some Russian officials have suggested that the British security services have led this attack to stir up anti-Moscow hysteria.
Asked about President Putin's responsibility, Ben Wallace told BBC radio: "In the end, he does so as president of the Russian Federation and it is his government that controls, finances and directs the military intelligence.
"In the end, of course, he is responsible, he is the head of state," he said.
On March 4, Skripal, a former Russian intelligence colonel who betrayed dozens of agents to the British Foreign Intelligence Service MI6, and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a public bench in the English city of Salisbury.
After the attack, the allies of Europe and the United States sided with British opinion and ordered the largest expulsion of Russian diplomats since the height of the cold war. Russia fought back by expelling Western diplomats.
The motive for the Skripal attack, which was traded in a Kremlin-approved spying exchange in 2010, is still unclear, as is the motive for using an exotic neurotoxic agent, Novichok, which has such clear ties to the Soviet past.
Reporting by Costas Pitas; edited by Guy Faulconbridge
