Russia Produced Nerve Agent That Poisoned Pair in UK, Confirms May By Bridget Johnson
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/russia-produced-nerve-agent-poisoned-pair-uk-confirms-may/
British Prime Minister Theresa May said Russia owes the UK an explanation by Tuesday of how their nerve agent poisoned a former spy and his daughter on British turf, while the White House said it’s hanging back to see how the situation develops.
Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy who fed intelligence to the Brits from 1995 to 2004 and was sent to the UK in a spy exchange in 2010, and his daughter Yulia collapsed March 4 at a shopping center in Salisbury. Both are in critical condition. A restaurant and a pub in the center have tested positive for traces of the nerve agent as military personnel clean up the crime scene and surrounding area.
Speaking to the House of Commons today after receiving an update on the investigation, May said it was “now clear that Mr. Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia.”
“This is part of a group of nerve agents known as ‘Novichok,'” the prime minister said. “Based on the positive identification of this chemical agent by world-leading experts at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down; our knowledge that Russia has previously produced this agent and would still be capable of doing so; Russia’s record of conducting state-sponsored assassinations; and our assessment that Russia views some defectors as legitimate targets for assassinations; the government has concluded that it is highly likely that Russia was responsible for the act against Sergei and Yulia Skripal.”
“Mr. Speaker, there are therefore only two plausible explanations for what happened in Salisbury on the 4th of March: Either this was a direct act by the Russian state against our country, or the Russian government lost control of this potentially catastrophically damaging nerve agent and allowed it to get into the hands of others,” May added.
Russia’s ambassador to the UK was told that the Kremlin “must immediately provide full and complete disclosure of the Novichok program to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.”
May said that if there’s “no credible response,” from the Russian government, NATO allies should stand together as “we will conclude that this action amounts to an unlawful use of force by the Russian state against the United Kingdom.” CONTINUE AT SITE
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