The latest news from the Salisbury attack is that Sergei Skripal is no longer in a critical condition and that his daughter Yulia is now talking and will be well enough to leave hospital at some point. This, obviously, has implications for the investigation into their attempted assassination. Yulia will, presumably, soon be able to tell the police about what happened in the days and hours leading up to them both being found on the verge of death in Salisbury city centre.
Internet conspiracy theorists will, I’m sure, declare that the fact the Skripals are not dead is proof that the Russians weren’t behind this. But given that it appears that the Skripals absorbed the nerve agent through their skin rather than breathing it in, it is unsurprising that it was less effective. The facts remain that the Skripals were poisoned with Novichok and that the Russians had a motive for trying to kill him and have made no attempt to offer a credible explanation for what happened.
Meanwhile, in the United States, the US government has sanctioned https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm0338 seven Russian oligarchs and 17 government officials. The US has frozen their assets and bars US companies and citizens from doing business with them. Interestingly, Oleg Deripaska, whose yacht George Osborne infamously got onto, is on this list. Deripaska also has connections to Peter Mandelson; Mandelson’s Global Counsel recently won a contract to advise one of Deripaska’s companies.
Washington’s actions are what many Russia experts think will be most effective in curbing Moscow’s aggression. The theory goes that actions against Putin’s circle will make them calculate that the price of Russia flouting international norms is too high for them personally and lead to Moscow pulling its horns in.
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