Head of Russian state broadcaster RT, Margarita Simonyan, joked that Russia should respond to the U.K's support for Ukraine through poisonings.
On Thursday, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, told U.K. lawmakers that long-range Storm Shadow cruise missiles "are now going into, or are in, [Ukraine] itself." He did not confirm how many missiles in total would be sent to the country.
Ukraine has repeatedly asked for long-range strike capabilities, but Kyiv's Western supporters have been reluctant to supply weapons that could be seen as escalatory or that offer the ability for Ukraine to strike Russian territory.
Ukraine has insisted it would not use such capabilities to attack targets inside Russia's borders, with Ukrainian Defense Minister, Oleksii Reznikov, saying in early February that "we will not use weapons supplied by foreign partners to fire on Russian territory."
Discussing how Russia should retaliate for the U.K.'s support for Ukraine, Simonyan referenced an infamous incident that occurred in Salisbury, England, in 2018.
She said: "Bad news came out today about the missiles that Britain is said to have delivered to Ukraine. These are long-range missiles, this is very disheartening, of course.
"I could make a joke here that my old acquaintances, Boshirov and Petrov are probably missing Britain and haven't seen its wonderful spires for too long.
"Perhaps it's time for them or for their colleagues, whether real or imaginary, to pay another visit there."
She was referring to Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov, the Russian nationals named and charged over the 2018 Novichok poisonings of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury.
The men explained their presence in the city on the day of the poisonings by saying that they were simply tourists on holiday and had been interested in seeing the spire of Salisbury Cathedral.
Sergei Skripal, a Russian double agent, and his daughter were found unconscious on a bench in Salisbury city center on Sunday, March 4, 2018, after being poisoned by the nerve agent Novichok. They both survived the attack but a British woman, Dawn Sturgess, died on 8 July of that year after coming into contact with the bottle that had contained the Novichok used to poison the Skripals.
After insisting that Russia was not in a war with Ukraine but rather against the whole of NATO, Simonyan continued to mention the possibility of a poison attack on British soil.
She said: "If we return to the joke about Boshirov and Petrov, every joke is only partially a joke.
"I would very much like to know that we are able, including the abilities of our security services, to retaliate in a targeted manner for the missiles."
She then spoke about seeking revenge on the International Criminal Court in The Hague and for Darya Dugina, among others.
Dugina, the daughter of far-right Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin—whose support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine she shared—died in a car bomb blast in August 2022.
Newsweek has contacted the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment.
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Gerrard Kaonga is a Newsweek U.S. News Reporter and is based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on U.S. ... Read more
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