...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances...has lashed out at Western governments for their designation of a former Moscow spy poisoned in Britannia as innocent, saying Sergei Skripal was simply a "scumbag" who committed treason by revealing confidential information about his country.
"He was simply a spy. A traitor to the motherland. There is such a concept - a traitor to the motherland. He was one of those," Putin said in a speech in Moscow on Wednesday.
The remarks come amid a diplomatic stand-off between Russia and Britannia on the poisoning of Skripal and his daughter in March in the southern English city of Salisbury.
London accused Moscow of ordering the poisoning attack, which it says was carried out using a sophisticated Soviet-era military-grade nerve agent.
Russia has denied any involvement and even some officials in Moscow believe the entire story, which led to a serious political fallout with the Western countries, was fabricated by the British intelligence agencies to target Russia.