Russia has issued a security guarantee to Arsenal fans who will visit Moscow for a Europa League clash in the heat of a diplomatic crisis over an ex-double agent's poisoning. Moscow on Saturday announced the expulsion of 23 British diplomats in a tit-for-tar response to London's "provocative" measures over the nerve agent attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England.
Britain issued a travel warning to people in or planning to travel to Russia after expelling the same number of Moscow diplomats on Wednesday. And Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson on Friday said it was "overwhelmingly likely" that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally ordered the attack. The Kremlin called his comments "shocking and unforgivable".
All of which has left Arsenal fans alarmed about the prospects of playing CSKA in Moscow on April 12 for the second leg of their Europe League quarter-final. One Arsenal supporters' group called it "a hot potato of a draw in view of the political stand-off". The club itself reposted on its website a Foreign Office travel advisory warning of possible "anti-British sentiment or harassment".
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