Ex-KGB colonel says spy was poisoned in Salisbury in a bid to harm Putin ahead of Russian elections this month
The poisoning of retired military spy Col. Sergei Skripal was an operation by Western secret services to harm Vladimir Putin as he seeks reelection this month, claims the Russian secret service's former expert on Britain.
Master spy Mikhail 'Smiling Mike' Lyubimov headed the UK desk at the headquarters of the Federal Security Service (FSB, formerly KGB) after being thrown out of London in the 1960s for seeking to recruit a female Foreign Office cipher clerk.
He rounded on claims that Moscow was behind the Salisbury poisoning of Skripal and his daughter Yulia, and claims Boris Johnson's reaction to the incident shows it is a plot against Russia.
This was later echoed by the Russian Foreign Ministry, which said that attempts to link Russia to Skripal looked designed to worsen relations between London and Moscow.
Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the ministry, told reporters at a briefing that the allegations were being used to whip up an anti-Russian campaign in Britain.
Lyubimov said: 'It is an absurd to kill a person who had been swapped.
'If he was to carry any secrets on him, he could have been killed here (in Moscow) - calmly, quietly - to inject him with a dose and no-one would have ever heard of it.
'Secondly, and this is the main moment: who benefits from it?
This was later echoed by the Russian Foreign Ministry, which said that attempts to link Russia to Skripal looked designed to worsen relations between London and Moscow.
Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the ministry, told reporters at a briefing that the allegations were being used to whip up an anti-Russian campaign in Britain.
Lyubimov said: 'It is an absurd to kill a person who had been swapped.
'If he was to carry any secrets on him, he could have been killed here (in Moscow) - calmly, quietly - to inject him with a dose and no-one would have ever heard of it.
'Secondly, and this is the main moment: who benefits from it?
'There is a huge prejudiced Russophobic campaign going against us which - with all my love to England and respect for its traditions - I don't understand.
'Why did it have to be England that became the source of disinformation and lies?'
His own protege Oleg Gordievsky has been living safely in Britain for three decades after defecting from Russia, he said.
Other defectors had not been harmed while living in the UK.
'It's obvious. Cheap games like this are certainly being played out in the run-up to the election.
'It even looks indecent,' said the retired 83 year old, acknowledged as one of the most admired spies of the Soviet era.
In London he tried to recruit a number of then rising Tories such as Nicholas Scott.
'They started this bogus story because getting us dirty is great,' he said.
'It is another comedy, and quite a ridiculous one, because Skripol had been already traded and is of no interest today.'
He was backed by an unnamed GRU agent who told Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper that Skripal - who retired from the GRU in the 1990s - was of no interest to the modern secret services.
Even so, 'if our men were afraid that he would disclose some information, they would find a way to eliminate him in a [Russian] prison.'
Russian senator Konstantin Kosachyov, head of the Foreign Affairs Committee oil Russia's upper house, said:
'I think Johnson's remarks are unacceptable in the current situation where even British police have not yet qualified the incident as a terrorist attack.'
He claimed: 'The official sounding of an unverified but 'politically-tasty' theory looks like an extremely dishonest policy….
'Secondly, (it is a) violation of the fundamental principle of the presumption of innocence.
'Thirdly, (it is) pressure on the investigative bodies.
'Even in Anglo-Saxon law, there must be limits to what is permitted for politicians.'
The first round of the Russian election is on 18 March.
Putin is expected to win by a landslide.