Theresa May has told the UK parliament that she and her government are now almost certain that the Russian authorities are behind the appalling murder attempt in Salisbury last, when Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with an extremely rare nerve agent.
Mr Skripal is a former spy who became a double agent, working for British intelligence against his Russian employers. His duplicity was discovered and he was arrested, tried and imprisoned by the Russians before being released under the terms of a 'spy swap' program in 2010. Since then, he has lived in Britain and has seen his wife die from a disseminated cancer in 2012, his brother die a couple of years ago and his son die from unknown causes while in Russia in 2017. Skripal and his daughter were seemingly poisoned with a highly toxic nerve agent, probably while enjoying a meal at a restaurant in Salisbury.
Few laboratories in the world can possibly have manufactured the poison in question and it's known that the Russians not only have the capability but also invented it. The evidence points strongly, almost overwhelmingly, towards them as being the guilty party. All that remains is to find conclusive proof that the Russian authorities knew about the attempted assassination.
In November 2006 the Russians murdered Alexander Litvinenko in London by administering a dose of the radioactive element Polonium. Russia has also been implicated in other suspicious deaths including that of Boris Berezovsky who was found hanged in 2013. Now they are heavily implicated in the attempted murder of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, and the British authorities have been looking afresh at the deaths of Sergei's wife and son to determine whether there are any grounds for suspecting that either of these was suspicious.
Despite all of this, Russia seems largely untouchable. Mrs May has talked of taking action against them but it is likely that this will be no more than a few expulsions of diplomats which will be answered by the Russians with expulsions of their own. What will not be affected will be Russia's participation in assorted global events, notably the football world cup and Olympic Games. While they provide support for the vicious government in Syria, invade Crimea and threaten Ukraine as well as sponsoring murders on the streets of Britain and no doubt elsewhere, our sporting authorities will happily ignore their actions. The world cup in Russia will proceed as though nothing has happened and Russia has already been welcomed back into the Olympic fold despite its history of state sponsored cheating.
What is wrong with us ? What is wrong with our sportsmen and women ? Surely to ignore the actions of this rogue state is to condone them and I, for one, find it shocking. Russia should be exiled to the outer reaches until it learns to behave like a civilised nation and any suggestion that we carry on sporting contacts as if nothing has happened should be condemned utterly.
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