Salisbury Attack: Russia Challenges UK Claims As It Now Calls Meeting Of The UN Security Council

Cover Image: Russian flag outside the Kremlin (Credit: PA Images)

Russia has called a meeting with of the UN Security Council, later today, to challenge the UK's claim that it was behind the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal.

It follows Moscow's call for a joint inquiry into the case which was rejected during an emergency meeting with the international chemical weapons watchdog in the Netherlands yesterday.

Moscow has asked for an open session of the UN Security Council to be held on Thursday at 8pm UK time.

UK security services have a high degree of confidence that they have pinpointed the location of the Russian laboratory that manufactured the nerve agent used in the attack, according to The Times.

A Whitehall source told the newspaper: "We knew pretty much by the time of the first Cobra meeting (the emergency co-ordination briefing that took place the same week) that it was overwhelmingly likely to come from Russia."

The Foreign Secretary, who has faced claims he exaggerated the evidence against Moscow, said countries around the world "continue to share our assessment" about the nerve-agent attack.

"Russia has had one goal in mind since the attempted murders on UK soil through the use of a military-grade chemical weapon - to obscure the truth and confuse the public."

"The international community has yet again seen through these tactics and robustly defeated Russia's attempts today to derail the proper international process."

Deleted tweets from 22nd March also suggested that Porton Down had discovered where the Novichok nerve agent was made and blamed Russia. 

But scientists have said they could not verify whether Russia was behind the attack.

Vladimir Putin seized on the comments from the chief executive of the Government's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), Gary Aitkenhead, as he accused the UK of launching an "anti-Russian campaign".

The head of NATO says it's not aiming to isolate Russia after the nerve agent attack in Salisbury but had to crack down to show it's unhappiness with Moscow. 

In a vote at OPCW, six of the 41 members backed Russia while 15 voted against, 17 abstained, two were absent, and one was not entitled to vote.

Nick Heath, deputy British ambassador to The Hague, said Russia had failed again in its attempts to "frustrate the process of justice".

Russian officials speaking after the meeting concluded said they had presented a "common sense" case and pointed to the "lies by Tony Blair" over Iraq as they criticised the intelligence about the attack.

Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russian news agency Tass said there is "no trust in Great Britain, it is impossible to trust London" after its continuous "misconduct" and the unacceptable rhetoric against Russia.