Britain 'dumb' if it thinks Russia would stage nerve attack during World Cup: Russian diplomats

Britain is foolish if it believes Russia staged a new nerve agent attack in England in the middle of the soccer World Cup, Russia's embassy to the Netherlands wrote on social media on Thursday.

The embassy was commenting after two Britons fell critically ill after what is thought to be a chance encounter with the poison after an attack on former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury in March.

The British authorities have not accused Russia of involvement in the new incident, saying their working assumption is that the Britons were poisoned by traces of nerve agent left over from the original attack. "How dumb (do) they think (Russia) is to use 'again' so-called 'Novichok' in the middle of the FIFA World Cup...The show must go on?," Russia's embassy to the Netherlands wrote on Twitter on Thursday.

Separately, Sergei Zheleznyak, deputy speaker of the State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, told state TV that the new poisoning incident in Britain looked like an attempt to spoil England soccer fans' positive perception of Russia.

Russia is hosting the tournament, which ends on July 15, for the first time.
Zheleznyak said Britain needed to whip up an hysteria to distract attention from what its intelligence services were doing. 

Earlier, Britain's security minister called on Russia to give details about the Novichok nerve agent attack on a former double agent and his daughter after two British citizens were poisoned with the same substance. Russia denies any involvement in the original attack.

"The Russian state could put this 'wrong' right, they could tell us what happened, what they did and fill in some of the significant gaps that we are trying to pursue," Security Minister Ben Wallace told BBC radio on Thursday.

The pair, a local 44-year-old woman and a 45-year-old man, were hospitalised after being found unwell on Saturday in Amesbury, just miles away from Salisbury where ex-double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were attacked in March.

"They (Russia) are the ones who could fill in all the clues to keep people safe."'

"I have received test results from Porton Down (military research centre) which show that the two people have been exposed to the nerve agent Novichok," Neil Basu, Britain's most senior counter-terrorism officer, told reporters.

Britain has accused Russia of poisoning the Skripals with Novichok - a nerve agent developed by the Soviet military during the Cold War - in what is the first known offensive use of such a chemical weapon on European soil since World War Two.

Russia has denied any involvement in their poisoning.