PRIME Minister Theresa May was correct earlier this month when she said it was “highly likely” Russia was behind the nerve agent poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter.
In 2006, the same rogue state sent two assassins to London to kill dissident Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive polonium. The two killers came to the UK in plain sight and got away murder on our soil.
Both the attack on Litvinenko and Skripal can be seen as tantamount to an act of war using banned weapons of mass destruction.
However, the response by successive Governments to the Litvinenko scandal was poor, so much so that the Russian state feels it can commit the same crime and face almost no serious consequences.
Expelling diplomats is an understandable action, but the UK should be working with our allies in Europe and American to mount a co-ordinated response.
Part of this should include stepping up economic sanctions, as well as targeting the assets held by corrupt Russians in the UK.
So too should the Government be clamping down on Scottish Limited Partnerships, an obscure business vehicle used by Russian gangsters to launder money.
Symbolic gestures must also be considered. As we reveal today, Edinburgh University gave an honorary degree to the head of a Russian cultural body widely perceived to be a propaganda front.
It was a bad call at the time and the University, which otherwise has an excellent reputation, could make amends by stripping former KGB man Vyacheslav Nikonov of his degree.
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