Eli Lake, Columnist

Treat Russia Like the Terrorist It Is

Whether the Skripal poisoning can be conclusively pinned on Moscow is beside the point.

March 9, 2018 at 4:00 AM EST

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

Scene of the assassination.
Photographer: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

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It's too soon to conclude whether the former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia are Moscow's latest overseas victims. U.K. authorities have just begun their investigation into the poisoning, while health officials treat nearly 20 others "in connection" with the incident. Regardless, the West must confront President Vladimir Putin on how Russia has used murder as a tool of statecraft.

Consider the context. The Skripal incident echoes the infamous 2006 poisoning with radioactive polonium of another former spy living in Britain, Alexander Litvinenko. Russian state assassinations are allegedly not limited to Britain either. In 2009, Dubai authorities said the killing of a former Chechen general, Sulim B. Yamadayev, was planned by a member of Russian parliament. This says nothing of the fate of Putin's opponents inside Russia.

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