Chilcot report: Russian embassy sends ‘told you so’ tweet in response to Iraq War inquiry

The Russian embassy in London has issued a damning response to the publication of the Chilcot Report, claiming Moscow had warned Britain of the consequences of entering into the Iraq War.

The embassy’s official Twitter account put up a graphic on Wednesday with the text “Keep calm but I Told You So”, in reference to the famous British “Keep Calm and Carry On” posters.

Alongside the image the embassy wrote: “#Chilcot inquiry: No real WMD in Baghdad, unjust & highly dangerous war. The entire region on the receiving end”.

The tweet came in the wake of the publication of Sir John Chilcot’s critical 2.6 million word report into Britain’s decision to invade Iraq, which followed a seven-year long inquiry.

It found that then-Prime Minister Tony Blair’s policy was founded on “flawed intelligence” and the process for deciding the war was legal was “far from satisfactory”.

The inquiry also found Mr Blair’s government presented evidence about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction “with certainty that was not justified” and troops were sent in before all peaceful options had been exhausted.

In the run-up to the 2003 invasion Russia was highly critical of Britain and the United States, with Russian President Vladimir Putin calling the Iraq War a “political mistake” in 2003.

Franz Klintsevich, Russia’s first deputy chairman of the defence and security committee in the Federation Council, said on Wednesday the UK must apologise for the Iraq invasion and pay compensation to the Iraqi people, Tass news agency reports.

Commenting on the report, the Russian senator said: "The commission that was specially established in the United Kingdom to study the causes and the circumstances of Britain’s involvement in the Iraq war has passed its verdict: the invasion into Iraq was a mistake. I believe such an acknowledgment today is clearly insufficient."

He added that the UK should "bring official apologies to the Iraqi people, pay it the relevant compensation and begin judicial prosecution of officials who made a decision on the invasion into Iraq."

"It is only in this case that it can be hoped that the necessary lessons from the tragedy will be drawn and no one would want to repeat it again," the Russian senator said.

This is not the first time the Russian embassy in Britain has issued tweets condemning UK politics.

Last year, the embassy responded to Prime Minister David Cameron’s comments that the Labour party was “a threat to national security” following Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership victory, tweeting: “Just imagine UK media headlines if Russian President called a leading opposition party threat to national security?”