UK blames Russian spies for nerve agent attack
PM May says GRU operatives targeted the Skripals
LONDON:Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday identified two suspects behind the March 4 nerve agent attack in Salisbury as members of the Russian military intelligence service GRU, saying it was not a “rogue operation”, but one approved at a senior level in Moscow.
May made a statement in the House of Commons after Scotland Yard released CCTV images and details of the two suspects gathered during a lengthy investigation into the incident that sparked a diplomatic row between the West and Russia, including a large number of titfor-tat diplomatic expulsions.
Referring to the investigation, May said: “Based on this work, I can today tell the House that, based on a body of intelligence, the government has concluded that the two individuals named by the police and CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) are officers from the Russian military intelligence service, also known as the GRU. “The GRU is a highly disciplined organisation with a wellestablished chain of command. So this was not a rogue operation. It was almost certainly also approved outside the GRU at a senior level of the Russian state.”
Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in Moscow: “The names published by the media, like the photographs, don’t mean anything to us.” She urged Britain “to refrain from public accusations” and work with Russian authorities to investigate the Salisbury attack.
The incident involved the attempted assassination of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, and the subsequent poisoning of Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley with the nerve agent Novichok.
Police named the two suspects as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, saying they travelled to London on Russian passports. May narrated details of their arrival at Gatwick airport, travel to Salisbury, and return to Moscow from Heathrow after the attack.
May said: “We were right to say in March that the Russian state was responsible…We repeatedly asked Russia to account for what happened in Salisbury in March, and they have replied with obfuscation and lies.
“This has included trying to pass the blame for this attack onto terrorists, onto our international partners, and even onto the future mother-in-law of Yulia Skripal. They even claimed that I, myself, invented Novichok.
“But should either of these individuals ever again travel outside Russia, we will take every possible step to detain them, to extradite them and to bring them to face justice here in the UK.”
The chemical weapon attack on British soil, she alleged, was “part of a wider pattern of Russian behaviour that persistently seeks to undermine our security and that of our allies around the world”. Britain, she said, is in the process of increasing its understanding of GRU. “I cannot go into details, together with our allies we will deploy the full range of tools from across our national security apparatus in order to counter the threat posed by the GRU,” she added.