Friday, March 16, 2018

Russia To Expel British Diplomats And Blacklist U.S. Citizens In Reply To Latest Expulsions And Sanctions

The Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry, Moscow © Maksim Blinov / Sputnik

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

STANA/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 involving a military-grade nerve agent on English soil.

After the first known offensive use of a nerve agent in Europe since World War Two, Britain has pointed the finger at President Vladimir Putin and on Thursday May gave the 23 Russians who she said were spies working under diplomatic cover at London’s embassy a week to leave.

The diplomats are due to leave London on March 20, RIA news agency quoted Russia’s ambassador to Britain as saying.

Separately on Friday, police in London launched a murder investigation into the death this week of a Russian associate of late tycoon Boris Berezovsky, but said nothing at this stage suggested a link to the attempted murders of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter on March 4.

Read more ....

Update #1: Russia to blacklist more US citizens in reply to latest sanctions – senior diplomat (RT)

WNU Editor: Some commentators are saying that we should not worry .... I Knew the Cold War. This Is No Cold War. (Stephen Walt, Foreign Policy). But I say we should be worried .... tensions are not decreasing, and there are now to many flashpoints around the world where something can easily go wrong and escalate into something else entirely.

3 comments:

someone said...

The problem is that Russia and the West have at this point only one commonality.They both fight against islamic extremists.That is too little to build an effective relationship.Its just enough to cooperate from time to time but that's it.

Anonymous said...

The Cold War has its flash points of unpredictability such as the Russian-Chinese border battles around 1968 and some nuclear saber rattling. Then the June 1973 nuclear alert as Israel was facing defeat during the surprise attack launched by Egypt and Syria.


Now we are in the midst of nuclear proliferation.
Now we are in a multi polar world
Now we have nuclear powers unhappy with their place in world affairs.
Now the rules are under attack.

So I think the dangers are elevated for an incident that spirals into a blood bath.

Hans Persson said...

I have always wondered why anyone cares about russia... No sane person take "communism" seriously.