London Begins Backtracking: Deletes Tweets, Sacrifices Johnson, Corbyn Triumphant
London is singing a different tune now. The Foreign Office deletes its tweet posted on March 22nd where they claim Russia is definitely guilty of poisoning Skripal.
Ruslan Sleptsov will tell us who noticed this, and what conclusions they've come to.
It looks like someone is in serious trouble. The UK media is going out of their way to execute Boris Johnson. The former Parliament member, George Galloway even urges him to retire due to his 'humiliating position.' What happened? It's quite simple. The Head of the Foreign Office was asked to answer for his words.
- How did you manage to determine the nature of the substance so quickly? Did the UK have samples?
Boris Johnson, Foreign Secretary: People from Porton Down…
- Do they have samples?
- Yes, and they were absolutely sure, I asked them, they said there were no doubts.So, we had no other choice but to do what we did.
The problem is that the military experts of the Porton Down lab said they failed to determine where the poison came from. It seems like Boris Johnson's wishful thinking.
Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the UK Labor Party: "Boris Johnson has serious questions to answer. He has announced to the entire world what he believes personally, not what's been backed up by evidence".
Then there's another episode that is notably inconvenient for the UK diplomats. This is from the 'cover your tracks' collection with a reservation — they couldn't sneak it in. The Foreign Office decided to delete its tweet posted on March 22nd. The one that specifically stated that the Porton Down experts were absolutely positive that the nerve agent used to poison the Skripals was made in Russia. This was also in the headline of the UK newspapers.
Maria Zakharova, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson: "They're absolute scammers. First, they tweet it, getting millions of re-tweets. Now, as the time has passed, they deleted it. Then they'll claim to be misinterpreted, that they were saying it was 'highly likely'".
What is surprising is that the Foreign Office, commenting on the deleted tweet and Boris Johnson's words, sticks to its position: it doesn't change anything. London and its partners know that it was Russia for sure, and there are no doubts about it.
Vladimir Chizhov, Russian permanent representative to the EU: "This diversion was most likely intended for the British society. As we all know, it has been divided since the 2016 Brexit referendum".
However, it turned out that reuniting the UK society around a good old spy scandal didn't work.
Ruslan Sleptsov, Vesti.