British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said on Friday that it was overwhelmingly likely that Russian President Vladimir Putin himself made the decision to use a military-grade nerve toxin to strike down a former Russian agent on English soil.
"We have nothing against the Russians themselves. There is to be no Russophobia as a result of what is happening," Johnson said.
"Our quarrel is with Putin’s Kremlin, and with his decision — and we think it is overwhelmingly likely that it was his decision — to direct the use of a nerve agent on the streets of the U.K., on the streets of Europe for the first time since the Second World War."
Russia has denied any involvement in the poisoning of Sergei Skripal.
The Kremlin said on Friday that British accusations that President Vladimir Putin was involved in a nerve agent attack in England were shocking and unforgivable, the state-owned TASS news agency reported.
"Any reference or mention of our president in this regard is a shocking and unforgivable breach of diplomatic rules of decent behavior," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to the agency.
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