A Russian ambassador on Wednesday warned that the world is heading to a “Cold War situation” after the United States and its allies began tossing Russian diplomats after a nerve gas attack on a former spy on British soil, according to reports.
“The West must understand that the anti-Russian campaign has no future,” Russian Ambassador Grigory Logvinov said in Canberra, according to Reuters. “If it continues, we will be deeply in a Cold War situation.”
His comments follow Australia’s decision to join more than 20 counties and NATO to expel more than 150 Russian diplomats for the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia earlier this month in Salisbury, England.
Prime Minister Theresa May said Moscow used the Soviet-era nerve gas Novichok to poison the pair, who are hospitalized in critical condition after the March 4 incident.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday said London hasn’t shown any evidence that Russia was behind the nerve gas attack, despite a briefing at the British Embassy in Moscow for foreign officials.
“To our great regret, up to now we have not seen any adequate or comprehensible proof or explanations whatsoever on the position held by official London,” Peskov said, according to Russian state news agency TASS. “London has not provided any information to the Russian side.”
He shrugged off the number of countries ousting diplomats and said other nations that haven’t taken part still don’t believe Britain’s allegations.
“First, 20 or 30 countries are just a part of the world community; it is much more diverse and includes a much larger number of nations ,” Peskov said.
“Second, even among the countries that sided with the UK, there are states that still believe that London’s arguments are weak and inadequate for such serious accusations against Moscow.”
He said the presentation offered warmed-up information that had already been circulated in news reports.
“The reports we saw in the media, which claim that precisely such information was presented as arguments, can barely stand up to any criticism,” he said.
