Boris Johnson has significantly escalated the row over the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia on British soil, saying that the government has evidence Russia has been creating and stockpiling the deadly nerve agent novichok within the past decade. The Foreign Office is optimistic that EU ministers will agree after Monday’s briefing by Johnson to a statement echoing the British blame on Russia for the nerve agent attack and calling on Russia to abide by its responsibilities under chemical weapons treaties. In the first test of European attitudes to Russia since Putin’s reelection as president on Sunday, the EU will also express its shock that a military grade nerve agent has been used on the soil of an EU state. The UK has been reminding France of Russia’s persistent defence at the UN of alleged use by the Syrian government of chemical weapons, pointing out that the French had led the call to end impunity for the use of chemical weapons at a special conference on the issue in Paris in January. The Russian ambassador in London, Alexander Yakovenko, accused the prime minister of deliberately inflaming the situation “to score points at home”.

Source: The Guardian March 18, 2018 08:49 UTC