May says Russia poses threat to all of Europe

BRUSSELS: British Prime Minister Theresa May said she would tell other European Union leaders on Thursday that Russia posed a threat to the whole bloc, not only to Britain, following an attack using a military-grade nerve agent in England.

"Russia staged a brazen and reckless attack against the United Kingdom," May told reporters on arriving at an EU summit. "It’s clear that the Russian threat does not respect borders and indeed the incident in the town of Salisbury was a pattern of Russian aggression against Europe and its near neighbours".

Meanwhile, May told her colleagues at a Brussels summit the attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the city of Salisbury using a deadly Soviet-developed nerve agent showed the Russian menace "doesn’t respect borders".

Her warning came as a British police officer who was also contaminated in the March 4 attack was released from hospital. While the US, France and Germany have swung behind London, saying they accept the UK assessment that the Russian state is the only plausible culprit, other EU countries keen to protect their Kremlin ties -- notably Greece and Italy -- want a softer line.

"It is clear that the Russian threat doesn’t respect borders and indeed the incident in Salisbury was part of a pattern of Russian aggression against Europe and its near neighbours," May told reporters as she arrived in Brussels.