Prime Minister Theresa May told parliament Britain would expel 23 Russian diplomats
ADVERTISEMENTBritain's response to the nerve agent attack on a Russian double agent in southern England does not go far enough and senior Kremlin figures should be targeted with sanctions, says Marina Litvinenko, the widow of a Russian dissident murdered in London in 2006.
Prime Minister Theresa May has told parliament Britain would expel 23 Russian diplomats and freeze Russian state assets wherever there was evidence of a threat as part of measures against Moscow who she blames for the poisoning of Sergei Skripal.
Russia denies any involvement in the March 4th attack on Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, who are both critically ill in hospital, and has accused Britain of unjustified action.
"I think something more should be done. It's not enough," Marina Litvinenko told Reuters in an interview.
Her husband Alexander, a former KGB agent, was murdered with the rare radioactive isotope polonium.
A public inquiry in 2016 concluded Litvinenko's murder was carried out by two Russians, one of them a former KGB bodyguard who became a member of the Russian parliament, as part of an operation probably ordered by Putin, allegations Moscow rejects.
After that inquiry, Britain expelled four diplomats and May told lawmakers that this time the response needed to be firmer. While Marina Litvinenko said the reaction had been faster and more direct than two years ago, it was not tough enough.
She said Britain should look at wider and bigger personal sanctions beyond those in the U.S. Magnitsky Act which imposed visa bans and asset freezes on Russian officials.
She said other Russian dissidents living in Britain still did not feel very secure.