Boris Johnson accuses Russia of stockpiling nerve agent

At the same time, his own Foreign Office says tests to verify Britain’s claim that the nerve agent was Russian will take two weeks

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Britain’s Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show. Photo: Reuters

Published: 10:58pm, 18 Mar 2018Updated: 11:08pm, 18 Mar 2018

Britain’s foreign secretary said on Sunday that he has evidence Russia has been stockpiling a nerve agent in violation of international law “very likely for the purposes of assassination”.

Boris Johnson said the trail of blame for the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the English city of Salisbury “leads inexorably to the Kremlin”.

Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is seen speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show in this photograph received via the BBC in London, Britain March 18, 2018. Jeff Overs/BBC/Handout via REUTERS - THIS IMAGE WAS SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES.

His comment came after a Russian envoy suggested the toxin used to poison the Skripals could have come from a UK lab.

Johnson told reporters that Britain has information that within the last 10 years, “the Russian state has been engaged in investigating the delivery of such agents, Novichok agents … very likely for the purposes of assassination”.

He claimed that “they have been producing and stockpiling Novichok, contrary to what they have been saying”.

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