Russian deja vu in Salisbury

The reach of the Kremlin is limitless. Everyone so far is tiptoeing round the possibility that the hand of the Kremlin was behind the bizarre poisoning of a Russian double agent and his daughter in Salisbury, Wiltshire, a city more famous for its wonderful cathedral than visitors intent on assassination. Sergei Skripal, former colonel in the Russian GRU intelligence service and a spy for Britain's MI6 for years, must have known that eyes have been watching him ever since he was plucked from a Russian prison and flown off to Britain in the last spy swap eight years ago. Why his would-be assassins waited all this time to carry out their nefarious deed is difficult to know. But you can be sure there's a big message there somewhere. If it turns out that this is another Litvinenko situation - Alexander Litvinenko, former Russian federal security service (FSB) spy murdered with Polonium-210 poisoning in London in 2006 - then Moscow is telling the world, "We really don't care about your laws, we will do what we want when we want if it's in the interest of our great motherland". As I blogged only yesterday, who is around these days who is capable of stopping Vladimir Putin from getting his way? Certainly, if there is a Russian link to the attempt on Colonel Skripal's life, Moscow must feel that Britain is an easy place to carry out such deadly operations. I can't recall this sort of open outrage happening in the US. This is a highly CCTVd country, so with any luck, the poisoning perpetrators will be unmasked but you can bet any links back to Moscow will be shrouded in a tangled web of denials. The Kremlin has already offered its full cooperation in investigating this "tragic" incident. One intelligence source said to me that even if a Russia link was proven it did not necessarily mean that it was the president himself who ordered it. In other words it could have been someone lower down the chain who maybe thought it would be a good idea to get rid of Colonel Skripal to please Putin, especially with him running for reelection on March 18. Perhaps like the four knights who stormed Canterbury Cathedral and murdered Archbishop Thomas Becket in 1164 after they had overhead King Henry 11 cry, "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" No, I doubt it, too. There is probably very little that happens in Russia without the prior say-so of President Putin. Indeed, after the investigation into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, the coroner involved in the case, Sir Robert Owen, stated that the Russian president was "probably" responsible for giving the order. Probably is both a big word and a weak word, so there was never any proper closure to the case, despite the naming of the alleged poisoners. Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, has already tentatively linked the Litvinenko poisoning to the Salisbury case. So then the UK government has to decide how to respond. Poor Theresa May, this is the last thing she wants in her in-tray.