US, Europe say the Kremlin poisoned Sergei Skripal. In Russia, no one buys it

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May has received support from the US and European neighbours over the spy poisoning. Photo / AP file.

Former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his adult daughter, Yulia, are still in hospital in critical condition after being found unconscious on a park bench in Salisbury, England this month.

Britain says the two had been poisoned with a nerve agent called Novichok, developed by Kremlin scientists several decades ago.

After an investigation, British officials accused the Kremlin of organising the March 4 attack, which is thought to have exposed as many as 130 people to the nerve agent.

In response, Britain has called for international consequences.

Today, the world got a better sense of what those consequences might look like. In a coordinated announcement, several European countries booted Russian diplomats from their soil.

Around the same time, US President Donald Trump announced that he would do the same. He expelled 60 Russian diplomats from the US and said he plans to close Russia's consulate in Seattle.

The Kremlin, however, has maintained its innocence, saying at one point that Britain's accusations "border on banditry." Russia's ambassador to the European Union, Vladimir Chizhov, told reporters that "the Russian state had nothing against" Skripal. Russian leaders have also pointed fingers elsewhere, suggesting that the United States or Britain is trying to frame the Kremlin in a bid to inflame Russiaphobia.

Experts say Russian Twitter trolls are working overtime to amplify this message, alleging that potentially fake accounts linked to a bot factory in St Petersburg have been sharing social media posts that cast doubt on the British investigation.

In one instance, according to experts, trolls circulated a poll that asked whether British Prime Minister Theresa May had provided the public with enough information.

Ben Nimmo, a senior research fellow at the Atlantic Council, said that after the attack, he saw an "attempt by pro-Russian users to influence the online poll, and thus to create the appearance of greater hostility towards the UK Government than UK users themselves showed."

UK PM Theresa May says 18 countries have announced they will expel "more than 100 Russian intelligence officers" in response to the nerve agent attack in Salisburyhttps://t.co/lTxNfa71Nx pic.twitter.com/Gj40UKd2Oa

— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) March 26, 2018

By some measures, the campaign is working, at least in Russia. In a phone survey conducted by state-run pollster VTsIOM, 82 per cent of those surveyed had heard about the poisoning of the Skripals. Of that group, just 5 per cent said they believed that Britain's allegations against the Kremlin were credible.

About 81 per cent agreed that Britain is "ready to use any chance to deepen the crisis in relations with Russia."

Additionally, 59 per cent said they would support Moscow's participation in an international investigation of the poisoning.

In response to the latest diplomatic dust-up, the Russian Embassy in Washington tweeted out a cheeky poll today asking which US consulate Russia should close.

About 45 per cent of the 13,000 voters had opted for the closure of the US Consulate in St Petersburg. Thirty-five per cent chose Yekaterinburg.