British prosecutors last week identified two Russians they said were operating under aliases — Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov — whom they accused of trying to poison Sergei and Yulia Skripal with a military-grade nerve agent in England. The two men who appeared on Russia's state-funded RT television station had some physical similarities to the men shown in British police images. They had stayed less than hour in Salisbury, they said, because of bad weather. Sergei and Yulia Skripal survived the poisonings after lengthy stays in hospital. 'Obfuscation and lies'Putin's claims were rejected Wednesday by British Prime Minister Theresa May's spokesperson, who called the men GRU officers "who used a devastatingly toxic illegal chemical weapon on the streets of our country."

Source: CBC News September 13, 2018 11:15 UTC