The British leader said police identified the poison as a “military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia.”
She said Russia either engaged in a direct attack against Britain or lost control of the nerve agent it developed. Britain will not tolerate such a “brazen attempt to murder innocent civilians on our soil,” she warned.
.. Skripal was jailed in Russia in 2006 for selling state secrets to British intelligence for 10 years, but he was released in 2010 as part of a high-profile spy swap. His daughter has been living in Russia but has also spent long periods in England. The two remain in critical condition at a Salisbury hospital.
.. Immediately after May’s remarks, the Russian government denounced her speech as a spectacle designed to mislead. “It is a circus show in the British Parliament,” the Tass news agency quoted Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying.“The conclusion is obvious: It’s another political information campaign, based on a provocation.”
.. May said British investigators have concluded that the chemical used in the attack was part of a group of Russian nerve agents known as Novichok.
.. Russia views some defectors as legitimate targets for assassinations
.. Novichok was developed in Moscow in 1987 at the State Union Scientific Research Institute for Organic Chemistry and Technology. That government laboratory was described by one of its top officials in the 1990s as “the leader in the technology of chemical destruction.”.. he doubted that Russia would provide any detail, beyond denials. But the two-day pause was likely designed as “a way for the British government to prepare everyone for a robust response.”.. Several lawmakers suggested that Britain pass its own version of America’s 2012 Magnitsky Act
.. Dmitry Kiselyov, the broadcast journalist, suggested it was all a plot to ruin the games for Russia and get British allies to boycott the World Cup.
“Why not poison him?” Kiselyov said. “Is he so valuable? And do it with his daughter to turn it into a real tear-jerker for the public.”