This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Ask someone on the street in Moscow about the nerve agent attack in Salisbury, and their answers often reflect those heard every day from local TV pundits or MPs.



“What reason would Russia have to do this?” said Sergey Markosyan, 36, as he popped into a Magnit supermarket in Moscow for beer, salty snacks and a carton of eggs. “He was in Britain, right? So shouldn’t they look in Britain?”



On Wednesday, Theresa May told British MPs there was “no alternative conclusion other than the Russian state was responsible for the attempted murder of Mr Skripal and his daughter”.

Play Video 2:07 'They have just one week to leave': May expels 23 Russian diplomats – video

Like many Russians, Markosyan is up to date on the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter, and all the reasons why – despite the assertions of the UK government – Russia was not involved. Why use a Soviet nerve agent that can be traced back to Moscow? And why attempt to kill a double agent who was traded years ago and no longer of any use?



May can’t rely on Trump and Europe against Russia – and Putin knows it | Simon Tisdall Read more

And then, as seen on TV, came the kicker: “He lived a dangerous life. He clearly got himself into some trouble.”



Television is a powerful force in Russia, where the top three stations are funded by the state. And in the past week, those channels have been feeding Russians a steady diet of bellicose rhetoric over the Skripal poisoning.



“It’s really hard to ignore,” said Diana, 26, who stood smoking a menthol cigarette outside the grocery store. She declined to give her last name. “It makes you angry. Sometimes you feel like there’s going to be a war.”



Russian politicians have promised harsh retribution for the sanctions and expulsions announced by May on Wednesday. Andrei Lugovoi, a Russian member of parliament who stands accused of the 2006 murder of the former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko, has been a popular guest on talkshows. A foreign ministry spokeswoman said the British should pay closer attention to Vladimir Putin’s state of the union speech, in which the president exhibited Russia’s latest nuclear weapons.



Q&A Does Russia present a credible threat to the UK? Show Hide Russia has been a useful bogeyman since its annexation of Crimea in 2014. UK military chiefs were spooked when Russia, during an intervention in Ukraine, used a combination of drones and artillery to destroy Ukrainian armour, and raised questions about whether the UK would be able to do much better than the Ukrainians in similar circumstances. The UK is far enough away for Russia not to pose a territorial threat. But UK forces are deployed in the Baltic states along with US and other Nato forces as a deterrent in the unlikely event of a Russian landgrab.

Russia does present a threat through hybrid warfare, or the use of deniable acts of disruption – primarily cyber-attacks on the UK that could disrupt essential services or interference in the democratic process, such as in elections.

“They didn’t listen to us before,” Putin said in the speech. “Well, listen to us now.”



The rise in tensions comes during the closing days of a lacklustre Russian presidential campaign. Putin is sure to be reelected to a fourth term in power but is concerned with getting out the vote to prove his government’s legitimacy.

Play Video 1:35 UK not interested in the truth, says Russian UN ambassador – video

At the very least, accusations that the Kremlin ordered Skripal’s death seem unlikely to hurt his chances. In the past several years, conflict with the west has become the norm in Russia, and Putin’s nominal popularity has remained high since his annexation of Crimea, despite western sanctions.



For many Russians, the hostile rhetoric isn’t all that unusual. It fits a familiar pattern that begins, they say, with Russia being blamed by the west, and then Moscow defending itself.



“We are the world’s scapegoat,” said Anatoly Sobolev, a sales associate on his lunch hour at a KFC.



Sobolev said he didn’t watch Russian television and believed that both the Russian government and media lied. But, he added, he trusted the British media and the British government even less.

He said Russia had also been accused of meddling in the 2016 US elections without any evidence. “Are we just supposed to believe them for their word?” he asked. “Why can’t they show any proof?”

May's modest response to Skripal attack will not deter Russia | Luke Harding Read more

The Russian establishment has also backed an idea that Westminster is lashing out to disguise weakness.



People think “the British have gone rabid”, said Sergey Karaganov, an influential foreign policy thinker, speaking by telephone on Wednesday. “There is a sense the west is lashing out because you’re weak, because the west is declining and Russia is rebuilt.”

Not everyone backs the government line, however. Waiting for friends at a subway station, a 20-year-old economics student named Alina said she was embarrassed by the heady rhetoric on television.

“It’s obvious they did it,” she said. “But who’s going to force them to admit it?”

