Russian official claims Britain is responsible for nerve agent attack on former spy

Senior official in Moscow's foreign ministry says 'logic suggests' British authorities may have poisoned Sergei Skripal

A Russian Foreign Ministry official has suggested Britain may have poisoned former spy Sergei Skripal.

“Logic suggests” the UK might have orchestrated the nerve agent attack in Salisbury, claimed Vladimir Yermakov, head of the ministry’s non-proliferation and arms control department.

In provocative comments, he said the only alternative conclusion was that UK authorities were “not able to provide protection from... a terrorist attack on their soil”.

The UK Foreign Office has accused Moscow of a “campaign of disinformation” over the poisoning of Mr Skripal and his daughter Yulia, who were found unconscious on a bench in the Wiltshire city on 4 March. The Kremlin continues to deny any involvement in the attack, carried out with a Soviet-era military-grade chemical.

“Logic suggests that there are only two possible things,” Mr Yermakov told a meeting with foreign ambassadors in Moscow.

“Either the British authorities are not able to provide protection from such a, let’s say, terrorist attack on their soil, or they, whether directly or indirectly – I am not accusing anyone – have orchestrated an attack on a Russian citizen”.

He told foreign envoys invited for a briefing that Britain was ”hiding facts” and that key evidence might “disappear.”

The UK’s ambassador to Laurie Bristow shunned the meeting amid heightened tensions between London and Moscow.

On Tuesday 23 Russian diplomats left the UK after being expelled from the country by Prime Minister Theresa May. In response, the Kremlin ordered 23 British envoys to leave Russia by Saturday.

Mr Yermakov’s remarks echoed unsubstantiated conspiracy theories which blamed Britain for attacking Mr Skripal, a former Russian double agent who was given refuge in the UK after selling secrets to MI6.

Some have accused Britain itself of launching the attack as a “false flag” to smear Russia, damage Mr Putin ahead of elections or even to distract from a grooming scandal in Telford.

Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s representative at the UN Security Council, has claimed the “most probable source” of the Novichok chemical used in the attack was one of several countries that had been carrying out research on nerve agents since the 1990s, including the UK.

But two Russian scientists on Tuesday contradicted the Kremlin’s insistence that there was never a state programme to make the deadly nerve agent, both independently stating that they were involved in the poison’s creation at chemicals weapons laboratories in the Soviet era.

The British Foreign Office said there was “no alternative conclusion other than that the Russian state was culpable”.

“The onus remains on the Russian state to account for their actions and to comply with their international obligations,” it added.

“Instead of providing an explanation for the Salisbury incident, Russia has launched a campaign of disinformation.”

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Moscow had constructed “a haystack of lies” to cover its involvement in the poisoning.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for ”transparency from Russia” and emphasised her country’s solidarity with Britain in a speech in speech in Berlin on Wednesday.

She said that “a lot of evidence points to Russia and so transparency from Russia is required to quell the suspicion.”

Ms Merkel added: “I would be happy if I didn’t have to name Russia here, but we can’t disregard evidence because we don’t want to name Russia.”