A new Cold War with Russia? No, It's worse than that

Ian Bond, a former British diplomat in Moscow who is now director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform in London, said Russia’s often implausible denials had made it “like the boy who cried wolf.” “If you keep putting forward crazy conspiracy theories, eventually people are going to ask whether what you are saying is just another crazy Russian denial,” he said.

Mr Bond said diplomacy during the Cold War, even when it involved hostile actions, tended to follow a relatively a calm and orderly routine. No longer is that the case, he added, noting that the Russian Embassy in London and the Foreign Ministry in Moscow have issued statements and tweets mocking Britain as an impotent has-been power and scoffing at the Salisbury poisoning as the “so-called Sergei Skripal case.”