was accused of being a Russian stooge and underestimating Russian interference. In early 2017, during her meeting with U.S. president Donald Trump, the UK prime minister Theresa May appeared to take a line harsher than that of the U.S. on the Russian sanctions. In April 2017, Moscow's ambassador to the UK Alexander Yakovenko said UK-Russia relations were at an all-time low. In mid-November 2017, in her Guildhall speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet, prime minister May called Russia ″chief among those today, of course″ who sought to undermine the ″open economies and free societies″ Britain was committed to, according to her.Theresa May accuses Vladimir Putin of election meddling BBC, 14 November 2017. She went on to elaborate: ″[Russia] is seeking to weaponise information. Deploying its state-run media organisations to plant fake stories and photo-shopped images in an attempt to sow discord in the West and undermine our institutions. So I have a very simple message for Russia. We know what you are doing. And you will not succeed.″ In response, Russian parliamentarians said Theresa May was "making a fool of herself" with a "counterproductive" speech; Russia's embassy reacted to the speech by posting a photograph of her from the Banquet drinking a glass of wine, with the tweet: "Dear Theresa, we hope, one day you will try Crimean #Massandra red wine". Theresa May's Banquet speech was compared by some Russian commentators to Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain speech in Fulton in March 1946;Леонид Ивашов. Фултонская речь Терезы Мэй interview of Gen Leonid Ivashov. it was hailed by Andrew Rosenthal in a front-page article run by The New York Times that contrasted May's message against some statements about Putin made by Donald Trump, who, according to Rosenthal, ″far from denouncing Putin's continuous assaults on human rights and free speech in Russia, [...] praised [Putin] as being a better leader than Obama.″ In December 2017 Boris Johnson became the first UK foreign secretary to visit Russia in 5 years. In March 2018, as a result of the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, relations between the countries deteriorated still further, both countries expelling 23 diplomats each and taking other punitive measures against one another. Within days of the incident, the UK government's assessment that it was ″highly likely″ that the Russian state was responsible for the incident received the backing of the EU, the US, and Britain's other allies.European Council conclusions