But, Nah, He Had Nothing To Do With It

Russian thug and kleptocrat Vladimir Putin, a role model for his U.S. asset Donald "Rump" Trump, has consistently denied his government's obvious role in the poisoning of former KGB double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, England last March. The poison used was developed by and is available only to Russian military intelligence. A Salisbury resident, Dawn Sturgess, later died from the poison after accidentally making contact with it.

If anyone needed further proof that former KGB Colonel Putin had ordered the attempted assassination on the turncoat spy, you need look no further than his angry denunciation today of Skripal:

“I see that some of your colleagues are pushing the theory that Mr Skripal was almost some kind of human rights activist,” Putin said at an energy forum in Moscow when asked about the case.

“He was simply a spy. A traitor to the motherland. He’s simply a scumbag, that’s all.” (our emphasis)

Putin still operates as if his beloved Soviet Union existed, and is angry that it collapsed. In 2005, he stated that the collapse of the dictatorship was a "genuine tragedy" and the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century."  As recently as last March, the Russian autocrat said if he could change one historical event, it would be to reverse the demise of the Soviet Union. Putin's Russia has no business being treated as anything but a smaller version of that tyranny, one which still engages in the worst Cold War behavior abroad.

(photo: A. Zemlianichenko/AP)