{"id":180363,"date":"2018-09-07T04:56:15","date_gmt":"2018-09-07T08:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=180363"},"modified":"2018-09-07T04:56:15","modified_gmt":"2018-09-07T08:56:15","slug":"canada-backs-british-claims-russian-officials-approved-spys-poisoning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/09\/07\/canada-backs-british-claims-russian-officials-approved-spys-poisoning\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada backs British claims Russian officials approved spy’s poisoning"},"content":{"rendered":"
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British authorities announced on Wednesday said two Russians, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, were being charged in absentia for the Salisbury attack after a lengthy investigation. (File Photo<\/a>: Vladimir Putin The Leader Of The World\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

OTTAWA \u2014 The Canadian government has backed British claims that Vladimir Putin’s government \u201calmost certainly\u201d approved a poison attack against a former Russian spy and his daughter in the U.K. earlier this year.<\/p>\n

The expression of support was delivered in a joint statement with the U.S., Germany and France on Thursday as Western allies sought to present a united front against \u2014 and ratchet up public pressure on \u2014 the Kremlin.<\/p>\n

The statement came after British authorities accused two Russian nationals of attempting to kill Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, with the nerve agent Novichok in the city of Salisbury in March.<\/p>\n

British Prime Minister Theresa May described the suspects as Russian military intelligence officers and alleged the March attack in Salisbury was approved by senior government officials in Moscow.<\/p>\n

British Security Minister Ben Wallace went further, saying Putin himself was ultimately responsible for the attack.<\/p>\n

Russia has repeatedly denied any involvement in the attack, which also sickened a British police officer and been linked to the death of a British woman, Dawn Sturgess, who accidentally came in June came contact with the same substance, which was developed by the Soviet Union as a chemical weapon.<\/p>\n

Canada\u00a0and its allies, however, said they had \u201cfull confidence in the British assessment that the two suspects were officers from the Russian military intelligence service ? and that this operation was almost certainly approved at a senior government level.\u201d<\/p>\n

They demanded Russia open its Novichok program to international inspectors, urged anyone with information about the attack to speak to authorities \u2014 and vowed to disrupt \u201cthe hostile activities of foreign intelligence networks on our territories.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Salisbury attack has both resurrected memories of the Cold War and become a symbol of a new era of tensions between Moscow and the West that started in earnest in 2014 with Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Relations between\u00a0Canada\u00a0and Russia have not been spared, with the two countries involved in various wars of words and tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions \u2014 including one round in March that was in direct response to the Salisbury attack.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has described the attack as \u201cunacceptable and unlawful,\u201d and insisted\u00a0Canada\u00a0would work with the U.K. and its allies to hold Russia to account.<\/p>\n

Moscow has maintained it was not involved, with Russian Ambassador to the UN Vassily Nebenzia saying on Thursday the latest allegations by London and its allies were designed \u201cto unleash a disgusting anti-Russian hysteria.\u201d<\/p>\n

Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, described the allegations levelled against Russian president and his government as \u201cunacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

British authorities announced on Wednesday said two Russians, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, were being charged in absentia for the Salisbury attack after a lengthy investigation.<\/p>\n

Russian officials have said they don’t recognize the suspects \u2014 whose names are believed to be aliases \u2014 and Peskov said Russia \u201chas no reasons\u201d to investigate them because Britain had not asked for legal assistance in the case.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OTTAWA \u2014 The Canadian government has backed British claims that Vladimir Putin’s government \u201calmost certainly\u201d approved a poison attack against …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":104004,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-180363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-lee-berthiaume","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}