The poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury has sent waves far beyond the United Kingdom, which reached the board of a warship some 2,000 kilometres away from the British coast.
The crew of British guided-missile destroyer HMS Duncan was ordered to return to the ship which was docked in a Montenegro port amid the mayhem caused by the Salisbury attack on March 4.
The Telegraph reports, citing “Warship: Life at Sea”, a documentary filmed for Channel 5, that 280 crewmen from the HMS Duncan were on shore in Montenegro when the news about the Skripals broke.
The crew members received a text message, reading “The Defence Attaché has informed the ship that Montenegro authorities have been made aware of a [redacted] group that will be in the area this evening. Therefore all ships company are to return onboard by 1800.”
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A Ministry of Defence spokesman explained the order by citing “local threat assessments and the wider geopolitical situation”. The Telegraph offers its own explanation: Montenegro was a socialist republic until the split of the Eastern Bloc in the early 1990s and “many links remain with Russia” (disregard the fact that Montenegro joined NATO last year, has implemented the EU's anti-Russia sanctions and is ruled by a pro-EU president).
The HMS Duncan, praised by the Royal Navy as one of the…
