Russia longs to be taken seriously in matters of global affairs, but President Vladimir Putin has demonstrated his disdain for the rules-based post-World War II order. What does Russia want instead? In two recent incidents involving the use of outlawed chemicals, Russia's answer has been a frantic parade of lies, bizarre explanations and attempts to distract from finding the truth.
On March 4, in the southern British town of Salisbury, a former Russian intelligence officer turned double agent, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter, Yulia, were discovered collapsed on a bench. An investigation by the British authorities and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons found they were poisoned by a binary nerve agent developed in the last years of the Soviet Union, known as the Novichok class.
No one has proved who did it. But Russia responded with a frenzy of blame-throwing, some of it patently ridiculous.
The sad truth is that this fog drifts far and wide. Russia's stock-in-trade is sowing doubt, most recently on behalf of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, said he had "irrefutable evidence" that the chemical weapons attack on Syrian civilians on April 7 was staged. The suggestion was a despicable untruth. It also says a lot about the new world disorder Russia is working to create.
Editorial on 04/18/2018