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Monday 25 of November 2024

UK leader: Response to Skripal attack hurt Russia spying


FILE - In this Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018 file photo, British Prime Minister Theresa May listens as Czech Republic Prime Minister Andrej Babis speaks at the start of their meeting inside 10 Downing Street in London.  May says the West's response to the nerve-agent poisoning of a former spy has seriously hurt Russia's intelligence capability. May's office says she will urge countries
FILE - In this Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018 file photo, British Prime Minister Theresa May listens as Czech Republic Prime Minister Andrej Babis speaks at the start of their meeting inside 10 Downing Street in London. May says the West's response to the nerve-agent poisoning of a former spy has seriously hurt Russia's intelligence capability. May's office says she will urge countries "to stand up for the rules around the world" during a foreign-policy speech on Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Britain accuses Russia of poisoning ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter with a Soviet-made nerve agent in Salisbury in March _ a claim Moscow denies. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, file),FILE - In this Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018 file photo, British Prime Minister Theresa May listens as Czech Republic Prime Minister Andrej Babis speaks at the start of their meeting inside 10 Downing Street in London. May says the West's response to the nerve-agent poisoning of a former spy has seriously hurt Russia's intelligence capability. May's office says she will urge countries "to stand up for the rules around the world" during a foreign-policy speech on Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Britain accuses Russia of poisoning ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter with a Soviet-made nerve agent in Salisbury in March _ a claim Moscow denies. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, file)

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Theresa May says the West’s response to the nerve-agent poisoning of a former spy has seriously hurt Russia’s intelligence capability.

May’s office says she’ll urge countries “to stand up for the rules around the world” during a foreign-policy speech on Monday.

Britain accuses Russia of poisoning ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter with a Soviet-made nerve agent in the English city of Salisbury in March — a claim Moscow denies.

After the attack Britain and other countries expelled a total of 150 Russian spies working under diplomatic cover. Russia expelled a similar number of those countries’ envoys.

May plans to tell the Lord Mayor’s Banquet in London that this was “the largest-ever collective expulsion of Russian intelligence officers, fundamentally degrading Russian intelligence capability for years to come.”