NATO joins two dozen nations in Russian expulsions over spy attack

NATO joins two dozen nations in Russian expulsions over spy attack

AFP / Ben STANSALL Johnson called the expulsions a "turning point" in the West's attitude to Russia

NATO joined two dozen governments around the world Tuesday in expelling Russian diplomats in response to a nerve agent attack in Britain, marking what London called a "turning point" in the West's relations with Moscow.
The US-led military alliance expelled seven Russian staff and denied accreditation to three more, bringing the total number of suspected Russian spies expelled to almost 150, including the 23 initially dispatched by Britain.

"This will send a clear message to Russia that there are costs and consequences for their unacceptable pattern of behaviour," NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said in Brussels.
In an unprecedented act of coordination, at least 24 countries have echoed Britain's action in response to the March 4 attack on former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the English city of Salisbury.
London and its allies have blamed Moscow, citing the use of a Soviet-designed nerve agent Novichok, Russia's record of targeting dissidents and its history of aggression in recent years, from Crimea to cyber-attacks.
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said the mass expulsions were "a blow from which Russian intelligence will need many years to recover".
It "could become a turning point", he wrote in The Times newspaper, adding: "The Western alliance took decisive action and Britain's partners came together against the Kremlin's reckless ambitions."
Skripal, a Russian military intelligence officer imprisoned by Moscow for passing on information about Russian agents in various European countries, came to Britain in a 2010 spy swap.

AFP / JIM WATSON US officials said that 48 "intelligence officers" attached to Russian diplomatic missions in the US would be expelled, along with 12 accredited to the United Nations in New York.

Moscow has fiercely denied any involvement in his attempted murder, instead pointing the finger at London.
It responded to Britain's expulsions with its own, and the closure of the British Council cultural organisation -- and on Tuesday promised it would hit back against the coordinated moves.

"We'll respond, have no doubt! No one wants to put up with such loutish behaviour and we won't," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on the sidelines of a conference in Uzbekistan.
Lavrov said the coordinated response was the result of "colossal pressure, colossal blackmail" from the United States.
- 'Full Cold War' -

AFP / NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA, Nicholas Kamm Washington led the way by ordering out 60 Russians in a new blow to US-Russia ties

Washington led the way in responding, ordering out 60 Russians in a new blow to US-Russia ties less than a week after President Donald Trump congratulated his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on his re-election.
Trump on Tuesday discussed the spy attack with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, the White House said, and expressed "support for the West's strong response."

Australia, Canada, Ukraine and 17 European Union states followed with smaller-scale expulsions, which have revived fears of a return to the Cold War.
"Relations between Russia and the West are entering a period of full Cold War," foreign policy analyst Fyodor Lukyanov wrote in the Vedomosti daily.
The Izvestia daily dismissed the expulsions as a "russophobic flashmob".
But Western officials made it clear in announcing the expulsions that they share Britain's assessment that only the Kremlin could have been responsible.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said Washington and its allies were acting "in response to Russia's use of a military-grade chemical weapon on the soil of the United Kingdom".
The Skripals remain in a critical state in hospital, and Prime Minister Theresa May said on Monday that "they may never fully recover".
- 'No one is fooled any more' -

AFP/File / Ben STANSALL The expulsions were a response to the poisoning in England of Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia

Britain has emphasised that the attack took place in the context of "reckless behaviour" by Russian President Vladimir Putin, including the annexation of Crimea.
May's spokesman said Tuesday that the "unprecedented" actions by allies were in part because they "recognise the threat that these Russian networks posed to the security of their own countries".

British officials say Russia has sought to divert attention by putting out more than a dozen explanations for the attack, the first using a nerve agent in Europe since World War II.

AFP / John SAEKI Russian envoys expelled

"There was a time when this tactic of sowing doubt might have been effective, but no one is fooled any more," Johnson wrote, adding that the expulsions were "a moment when the cynicism of the propaganda machine was exposed for all to see".
Washington's expulsions represented the largest ever of Russian or Soviet agents and came after US President Donald Trump's predecessor Barack Obama expelled 35 in late 2016 over alleged election meddling.

The Russian embassy in Washington responded by asking its Twitter followers to vote on which US consulate should be closed, listing those in Vladivostok, St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg as options.

Anger mounts in Russia over mall fire that killed 41 children

AFP / Dmitry Serebryakov Hundreds of angry Kemerovo residents packed the the city's central square on Tuesday, calling for the resignation of the region's veteran governor and questioning the official death toll

Russians vented their anger at the authorities on Tuesday over a huge mall fire that killed at least 64 people, including 41 children, many of whom were trapped in the inferno by locked doors.
President Vladimir Putin flew to the Siberian city of Kemerovo two days after the tragedy and laid roses at a makeshift memorial as critics questioned his response to one of the deadliest fires in Russia over the past century.

Hundreds of residents meanwhile packed Kemerovo's central square, calling for the resignation of the region's veteran governor and questioning the official death toll.
In Moscow, around 2,000 people gathered on Pushkin Square in mourning on Tuesday evening, leaving flowers, lighting candles in the shape of the word "Kemerovo" and letting off white balloons.
Russia's main opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his wife left a bunch of red carnations.
Some protesters in Moscow shouted slogans calling for the sacking of Kemerovo's region and for "Russia without Putin."
Protester Yekaterina Nekrasnova, a 29-year-old photographer, said: "My friend in Kemerovo has lost two children and her husband is in intensive care."

AFP / Dmitry Serebryakov Russian emergency service worker at the site of a fire that killed 64 people at a multi-storey shopping centre in the Siberian city of Kemerovo on March 27, 2018

She blamed the fire on "negligence and greed."
In Saint Petersburg, Russia's second largest city, hundreds gathered on the central Marsovo Polye square, many carrying flowers.

"All these children were killed by corruption and lawlessness. These ruling powers killed them," said 26-year-old Varvara Mikhailova.
Investigators said relatives had reported a total of 67 people missing, while the official toll has been given as 64.
After a huge outpouring of grief and anger on social media, the Kremlin announced a nationwide day of mourning for Wednesday for victims of the fire, which ripped through the busy shopping centre on Sunday afternoon.
"My family is no more," Igor Vostrikov -- who lost his wife, sister and three children aged two, five and seven years -- said on VKontakte, Russia's version of Facebook.
"The ruling regime in my country is to blame for it."

SPUTNIK/AFP / Alexey DRUZHININ Russian President Vladimir Putin visits a memorial after at least 64 people, including 41 children, died when a fire raged through a busy shopping centre

Investigators said the victims were burned alive or suffocated because emergency exits were locked, notably in a cinema where children watched cartoons.
A criminal probe has been opened and five people have been arrested over the blaze.

Multiple safety rules were violated, the fire alarm system had not worked since last week and staff did not follow correct emergency procedures, officials said.
- 'We are dying. I love you' -
Putin, who was re-elected for a fourth term in polls earlier this month, visited a memorial of toys, flowers and balloons near the gutted mall's facade, telling officials he felt "like wailing" over the number of victims.
"What is happening here? These are not armed hostilities. This is not an unexpected release of methane in a mine. People, children came to relax," Putin said.
"We are talking about demographics but are losing so many people. Because of what? Because of some criminal negligence, slovenliness," Putin said.

AFP / Dmitry Serebryakov Kemerovo residents pay tribute to those lost in the fire, which raged through a busy shopping centre on Sunday

Russian newspapers ran heart-wrenching accounts of children's last minute calls to their parents and relatives.
"Tell my mom that I loved her," one woman quoted her niece as saying in comments in the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.

Vostrikov, who lost his family in the blaze, said he had spoken to his wife in her final moments.
"We have been locked inside the movie theatre. We are suffocating, we are dying. I love you," he said she had told him.
Speaking in videotaped comments, he claimed the number of victims was much higher than reported.
Many others also questioned the official death toll but officials said the figures were final, urging Russians not to trust unconfirmed reports on social media.

AFP / Dmitry SEREBRYAKOV An aerial view taken with a drone on March 27, 2018 showing the multi-storey shopping mall where 64 people died in a fire in the Siberian city of Kemerovo

The head of Russia's Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, said ticket collectors and other staff fled the scene, leaving movie-goers locked inside.
"Those workers who were supposed to be in charge of safety, organising evacuation, they were the first to flee," he told Putin.

Bastrykin also told Putin that a teacher had left a whole class of children alone in a games room while she shopped.
- 'Gas chambers' -
Temperatures during the blaze reached 600 degrees Celsius (1,112 degrees Fahrenheit) and some of the bodies were so badly burned they would need to be identified through DNA testing, officials said.
Meeting with a group of grieving locals, Putin said some 100 investigators were working at the scene.

AFP / Simon MALFATTO Map of the world locating the worst shopping mall fires in the past 20 years

A young man told Putin he was outraged that the doors were locked at the mall, effectively turning the premises into "gas chambers".
Putin promised a "transparent" investigation but declined to fire Aman Tuleyev, who has been governor of the Kemerovo region for the past 21 years.

Tuleyev apologised to Putin over the rally, calling its organisers troublemakers.
The Russian leader also visited victims at a hospital including Ivan Zavarzin, 18, who survived the fire after jumping from the top floor

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