Russia highly likely to be behind poisoning of spy, says Theresa May

PM says UK will not tolerate ‘brazen attempt to murder innocent civilians on our soil’

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Theresa May said Skripal had been targeted by a ‘nerve agent of a type developed by Russia’. Photograph: HO/AFP/Getty Images

Anushka AsthanaPolitical editor-Mon 12 Mar 2018 17.44 GMT

Theresa May has said it is “highly likely” that Russia was responsible for the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in Salisbury and warned that her government will not tolerate such a “brazen attempt to murder innocent civilians on our soil”.

In a statement to the House of Commons after chairing a meeting of the national security council, the prime minister said the evidence had shown that Skripal had been targeted by a “military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia”. She said the substance was from a group known as Novichok.

“Based on the positive identification of this chemical agent by world-leading experts 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,” she said.

The prime minister said that left just two plausible explanations for what happened in Salisbury.
“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.”

She said that the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, had summoned the Russian ambassador to find out which was the correct conclusion and therefore account for how the nerve agent had been deployed. The UK government demanded a response by the end of Tuesday, she added.

However, May made clear that she believed there was already “a backdrop of a well-established pattern of Russian state aggression” – listing the illegal annexation of Crimea, violating the airspace of European countries, and a “sustained campaign of cyber-espionage and disruption”.

“This has included meddling in elections, and hacking the Danish ministry of defence and the Bundestag, among many others.”

She also spoke of the extrajudicial killing of terrorists and dissidents outside Russia – and the murder of Alexander Litvinenko.

The government would consider Russia’s response on Wednesday, she said.

“Should there be no credible response, we will conclude that this action amounts to an unlawful use of force by the Russian state against the United Kingdom,” she said, promising to return to the house with a full range of responsive measures.

“This attempted murder using a weapons-grade nerve agent in a British town was not just a crime against the Skripals.

“It was an indiscriminate and reckless act against the United Kingdom, putting the lives of innocent civilians at risk. And we will not tolerate such a brazen attempt to murder innocent civilians on our soil. I commend this statement to the House.”