The Sun, the British tabloid with the highest circulation among newspapers in the UK, recently published an article which speculates as to the motives behind the alleged poisoning of Sergey Skripal, a double agent who spied on Russia, and his daughter, Yulia. According to the media outlet, it was revenge for a supportive comment made by Yulia on a friend's Facebook post that contained a photo of a piece of writing which advocated putting Russia's incumbent President Vladimir Putin in jail.
The picture of the text is an old internet "meme" — the work of a Russian 8th grader, where the young author claims it would be better for the country if Vladimir Putin were put in jail. The teacher gave the work a good mark, despite a number of mistakes, as well as added the comment "great idea."
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According to the Sun, the daughter's comment on her friend's Facebook post was a sign that she "dared to openly criticize" Vladimir Putin on a social network and thus probably put both her own and her father's lives at risk. The tabloid also figured that the teacher's "great idea" remark on the student's paper was also made by Yulia. However, there is no information on Facebook that she ever taught at a school; hence it's highly unlikely that she wrote that remark on a 5-year-old paper.
Skripal is a former agent of Russia's Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) who had been arrested for spying for the UK. He was later pardoned and released in 2010 as part of a spy swap. He was recently found with his daughter in critical condition near a shopping center in the British city of Salisbury in the UK, where he had received asylum. British newspapers were quick to blame Moscow for attempting to murder the ex-spy with "a rare and almost untraceable rat poison" for betraying the country.
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Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has urged for the case to be thoroughly investigated before drawing conclusions on Moscow's alleged involvement, after UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson speculated on the matter during his address to the parliament on March, 6, potentially advocating more sanctions against Russia as well as boycotting the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.
