May’s PM stint ‘very difficult period’

MOSCOW: The Kremlin said on Friday that Theresa May’s premiership has been a very difficult time for Russia’s relations with Britain.

"Mrs May’s stint as prime minister has come during a very difficult period in our bilateral relations," President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists. Diplomatic relations between Britain and Russia plunged to their lowest ebb in decades after the poisoning with a nerve agent of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the city of Salisbury in March last year.

The British government said the military grade nerve agent was produced in Russia and the attempted assassination was "almost certainly" approved by the Russian state. Moscow has denied any involvement in the attack.

Among a raft of responses, London suspended all planned high-level bilateral contacts between the two countries and cancelled visits by ministers and members of the royal family to last summer’s World Cup in Russia.

Peskov said that "off the top of my head I can’t remember any milestones linked to May’s contribution to developing bilateral relations between Russia and Britain." Russia is following the Brexit process "with great attention", Peskov added, since the European Union is Russia’s "main trading and economic partner."