Kremlin Rejects U.K. Demand to Change Behavior After Spy Attack

(Bloomberg) -- The Kremlin rejected U.K. demands for Russia to change its behavior if it wants to improve relations after last year’s deadly nerve-agent attack on a dissident former spy in England.

“No, we won’t change behavior because the only thing that Russia wants is mutually beneficial relations which are based on respect for each other’s interests,” President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday, according to Russian news services.

Putin a day earlier had urged the U.K. to “turn the page” over the poisoning of former double-agent Sergei Skripal in the southern English city of Salisbury in March last year. London rejected the president’s comments, saying ties could not go back to normal unless Moscow “changes its behavior.”

The assassination attempt plunged already-chilly relations to their lowest point since the Cold War after U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May blamed Russia, which denied responsibility. Britain rallied allies to carry out the coordinated expulsion of more than 150 Russian diplomats in retaliation, provoking a tit-for-tat response from Moscow. British police identified two Russian military intelligence agents as responsible for the attack.

While Skripal, whom Putin denounced as a “scumbag” and a“traitor” in October, survived the poisoning together with his daughter, Yulia, Salisbury resident Dawn Sturgess died after being exposed to the Novichok nerve agent hidden in a fake Nina Ricci perfume bottle that had been thrown away after the attack.

To contact the reporter on this story: Henry Meyer in Moscow at hmeyer4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Gregory L. White at gwhite64@bloomberg.net, Tony Halpin, Torrey Clark

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