Prime minister Theresa May has issued an ultimatum to Russian to explain how a former spy was poisoned in Salisbury. She said that if there was no response from Moscow, she would conclude that it was an “unlawful use of force” by the Russia against the UK. She told MPs that it was “highly likely” that Russia was behind the attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. She warned that Britain would not tolerate such murderous attempt on innocent civilians on its soil.
May said the evidence had shown that Skripal had been targeted by a “military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia”. Describing the incident as a reckless act, she said that foreign secretary Boris Johnson had summoned the Russian ambassador to Whitehall and demanded an explanation by the end of Tuesday.
Russian officials hit back, with Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Russian foreign minister, calling the remarks “a provocation” and described the event as a “circus show in the British parliament.” The prime minister said that there was just two plausible explanations, “Either this was a direct act by the Russian state against our country, or the Russian government lost control of this nerve agent and allowed it to get into the hands of others.”
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 European airspace and a “sustained campaign of cyber-espionage and disruption,” including “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 Litvinenko.
