UK demands Russia explain new poisoning
Britain’s interior minister demanded Thursday that Russia explain how two people were inadvertently poisoned with the same military-grade nerve agent used against a former Russian spy and his daughter, insisting it was unacceptable that English towns become “dumping grounds for poison.”
A man and woman in their 40s were in critical condition at a hospital in southwest England after they fell ill Saturday near Salisbury, a city not far from Britain’s iconic Stonehenge monument.
Experts at Britain’s Porton Down chemical weapons laboratory have determined the two were exposed to the same type of Novichok nerve agent used to attack ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, on March 4 in Salisbury.
Britain has accused Russia of being behind the Skripal attack, but the Kremlin denies any involvement. British Home Secretary Sajid Javid told Parliament on Thursday it is now time for Russia to explain “exactly what has gone on.”
“It is completely unacceptable for our people to be either deliberate or accidental targets, or for our streets, our parks, our towns to be dumping grounds for poison,” Javid said.
The unexplained poisoning of two British citizens with no apparent link to Russia raised health concerns in Salisbury, where a massive decontamination effort took place after the Skripal poisoning case.
There was no panic as police cordons sprang up again and police stood guard near potential contamination sites Thursday. Still, residents could not contain their unease with a second brush with Novichok, even though public health officials said the risk of contamination to anyone was very low.
Experts say just a few milligrams of the odorless liquid — the weight of a snowflake — is enough to kill a person within minutes. Finding it is the problem.
Chemical weapons expert Hamish de Bretton-Gordon said the latest victims are likely collateral damage from the Skripal attack.
“The Novichok gel that was smeared on the handle of the Skripals’ house was presumably transported in some device or syringe,” he said. “I think the working assumption now is that device or that syringe is what has appeared and the residue caused these two people to become ill.”
The new case has surfaced days before a NATO summit that is expected to address the worsening relations between Russia and the West. It also comes as Russia hosts the World Cup in which both the English and Russian soccer teams have advanced so far.
The Kremlin’s spokesman says Russia is concerned about the case but had nothing to do with either poisoning.
“Russia has categorically denied and continues to categorically deny the possibility of any kind of involvement to what was happening there,” President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters Thursday.
Peskov noted that Britain rejected Russia’s offer of a joint probe of the Skripal case, adding that the U.K. “has not presented any evidence of Russia’s involvement in this, besides unfounded accusations.”
Javid said the nerve agent involved in the current case was the same variety as that used against Skripal and his daughter, but it’s not clear whether the two samples came from the same batch.
“What we are clear on ... is that this is the exact same nerve agent from the Novichok family,” he said. “We cannot attribute this to the same batch at this point. Scientists will be looking into that. I am also told that may not even be possible.”
Local police declared the recent poisoning a “major incident” Wednesday, four days after the couple — identified by friends as 44-year-old Dawn Sturgess and 45-yearold Charlie Rowley — were found at a residential building in Amesbury, eight miles from Salisbury.