Russia's guilt assigned

A Russian newspaper was able to secure the Powerpoint presentation used by the UK government in a presentation to its allies on the poisoning incident in Salisbury. The publication, Kommersant, reports that the document was never shared with Russian authorities and is a mere six slides long, including the cover slide. The briefing by the British, was held at their embassy in Moscow on 22 March. “Basically, the presentation repeats the thesis of London, which has already been stated, but with one important exception: instead of Russia being guilty with 'a high degree of probability', it is now guilty 'without the slightest doubt'.

The presentation was shown and distributed in print to 80 high-ranking representatives of foreign embassies and four days later, the mass expulsion of Russian diplomats began.

A day before the British briefing, on 21 March, the Russian foreign ministry held their own briefing on the 'Skripal case' for foreign diplomats, conducted by the director of the department for non-proliferation and arms control Vladimir Ermakov. The British ambassador to Moscow, Laurie Bristow, did not attend.

The presentation consists of six slides. The first is the cover slide.

The second slide sets out the chronology of the incident in the period from March 4 (the admission to the hospital of the former double agent Sergei Skripal, his daughter and local police officer) until March 20, when “23 unregistered Russian intelligence officers were expelled from the UK.” A map with the scene of the incident is attached.

The third slide, entitled, 'A New Phase of Russian Aggression', contains a description of the Novichok agent, which was identified by the military chemical laboratory of Porton Down, not far from Salisbury.

The presentation affirms that the application of the agent “the first use of chemical weapons in Europe since the Second World War” and a “violation of the ban imposed by the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons”.

Without any doubt, Russia is responsible, the document reads.

“No other country had the same opportunities, intentions and motives in order to do it. This is a firm reversal of Prime Minister Teresa May's stance that Russia was only “highly likely” to have been involved. No new evidence has been uncovered to change this stance. The presentation also indicates that Russia had not provided the UK with conclusive evidence of its non-involvement in the incident.

The fourth slide describes the impact of the agent on the human body and gives statistics of the victims and the incident. Side effects of Novichok are listed: convulsions, loss of consciousness, coma, slow heartbeat, nausea, diarrhoea, excessive sweating, etc. “Death can arise from suffocation or cardiac arrest,” the British embassy concluded.

The fifth slide simply lists what is described as hostile actions by Russia including the events in Crimea, the Ukraine and, surprisingly, its apparent interference in the American elections. This series is crowned by the “poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal” in March 2018.

Finally, the last slide talks about the measures that the British government took as a result of the above. Among them, the “direct indication of Russia's responsibility, the dismantling of Russian intelligence network in the UK, freezing all planned bilateral contacts, strengthening border control, combating crime and corruption, the adoption of new laws and other measures to counter the hostile state “.

One of the participants in the British briefing, US ambassador to Russia John Huntsman, in an interview with Kommersant on 26 March said that the position of London presented in the presentation seemed “very convincing” to him.

“They have prepared a very qualitative and convincing review of this incident, comparing it with similar cases that occurred in the past,” the ambassador added. A spokeswoman for the Russian foreign ministry, Maria Zakharova, said the presentation “is not being passed on to the Russian side and is not being made public.” According to her, “at the moment, nothing has been sent from London to Russia regarding what happened”.

The document does not provide any new information compared to what was previously provided by the British authorities. The only difference is the re-qualification of Moscow's status from “with a high probability” of guilt to guilty “without the slightest doubt”. At the briefing, British Ambassador Laurie Bristow said that “the principle of Russia's actions is to disentangle, mislead and sow doubt”. “In the coming months, your support in taking measures to ensure the security of every person and our common international security will be of key importance,” she said.

While Russia is still to respond, 25 countries, as well as NATO, have announced the expulsion of Russian diplomats after Great Britain expelled the first batch.

Political experts are of the view that the diplomatic row currently underway will escalate as each response should be more aggressive than the action. Many are of the view that the political situation is dangerous – for the entire world. The presentation is available on Kommersant's website, ­www.kommersant.ru.