THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT has concluded it is “highly likely” that Russia was responsible for the attempted murder of a former Russian intelligence officer and his daughter last week in the English city of Salisbury, Prime Minster Theresa May said on Monday.
While the police investigation into the attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia is not yet complete, May
told Parliament that chemical weapons experts from a nearby British military facility reported that the two were “poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia,” one of
a group known as novichok.
“There are, therefore, only two plausible explanations,”
the prime minister said, “either this was a direct act by the Russian state against our country, or the Russian government lost control of its potentially catastrophically damaging nerve agent and allowed it to get into the hands of others.”
May informed the House of Commons that the British foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, had already summoned the Russian ambassador in London to demand an explanation from his government within 24 hours.
The prime minister also said that Britain would “respond to this reckless and despicable act,” noting that previous incidents had been met with sanctions and the expulsion of diplomats.
The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, quickly dismissed May’s statement as “a circus act” that was part of a “political campaign based on provocation.”