British foreign minister Boris Johnson suggested on Thursday that corrupt Russians who owe their wealth to their ties with President Vladimir Putin could be targeted by British police in retaliation for a nerve attack on a Russian ex-spy.
Britain announced on Wednesday it was expelling 23 Russian diplomats over the Novichok nerve agent attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. Moscow denies any involvement and is expected to retaliate.
“What people want to see is some of the very rich people who are directly associated with Vladimir Putin … whose wealth can be attributed to their relationship with Vladimir Putin, it may be that the law agencies, that the police will be able to put unexplained wealth orders on them, to bring them to justice for their acts of gross corruption,” Johnson told BBC television in an interview on Britain’s response to the Skripal case.
