Two Russians were charged with the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal and his daughter six months after a nerve-agent attack in the southern English city of Salisbury. Image: Metropolitan PoliceVLADIVOSTOK, Russia—President Vladimir Putin said the two Russians accused by the U.K. of poisoning a former Russian spy in England were civilians, maintaining Moscow’s denial of involvement and foreshadowing an alternative narrative of events that led to the largest-ever collective expulsion of Russian diplomats from the West. The U.K. government immediately rejected Mr. Putin’s suggestion that the men weren’t Russian military intelligence officers.

Source: Wall Street Journal September 12, 2018 08:06 UTC