Call for Poirot: Russia’s ambassador to the UK, Alexander Yakovenko, arrives at a news conference in the Russian Embassy in Kensington, west London on March 22, 2018
Alexander Yakovenko, the Russian ambassador took centerstage at the ornate Kensington embassy of the Russian Federation as he declared that accusing fingers should instead be pointed directly at British authorities over the alleged nerve agent poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia as the international blame game continued.
Fielding questions at the impromptu press briefing, he spoke about Putin and Poirot and the
poison standoff sounding serious and sarcastic all at once. When asked at the news conference whether Russia was treating the incident as a joke after the embassy posted another of its tongue-in-cheek tweets alongside a photograph of detective Hercule Poirot, the creation of crime fiction writer Agatha Christie, saying his crime-solving skills was needed in Salisbury due to the lack of evidence.
He calmly defended the tweet. “We don’t have any information,” Yakovenko told reporters. “The investigation is classified. We don’t know the motivation of the British government, and that’s why it says: this case is so complicated, we need, let’s say, some wisdom of a person like Poirot to investigate.”
