A similar story is being told in newspapers friendly to the Kremlin. Nezavisimaya Gazeta said the West and NATO are ganging up on Russia. Izvestia wrote in similar fashion that there is little that can be done to stop "British media hysteria." The publication cited Federation Council Chairwoman Valentina Matviyenko, who called the affair "A campaign of Russophobia."
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Chairman of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin depicted the drama as an attempt to interfere with the Russian presidential election. Konstantin Kosachev, who chairs the foreign affairs committee in the upper house of the Russian parliament, said someone in London "planted evidence" to make Russia look bad.
Russia: 'Spawn from hell'
In the financial paper Vedomosti, three editors wrote that Russia has the same reputation in the West as did the Soviet Union: that the USSR murdered a number of opponents abroad — and denied doing so. "Moscow looks like a repeat offender that not just once, but repeatedly proclaims its innocence," they wrote. That position, the editors continued, provides Russia's critics in the United States and Europe the fodder to paint the country as the "spawn from hell" that violates peace.Read more: Skripal case adds to West's 'massive trust deficit' against Russia
The liberal and independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, meanwhile, compared Russia to North Korea. The well-known journalist, Julia Latinina, seems convinced that the Kremlin was behind the attack, and reacted with sarcasm to Russia's response to the incident. "First, this is what happens to anyone who betrays us," she wrote. "Second, it is our enemies who committed this crime." Russia suffers from a paranoid worldview, she went on: aggressor as victim, making any discussion moot.