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Reuters

Inspectors from the world’s chemical weapons watchdog on Monday began examining the poison used to strike down a former Russian double agent in England, in an attack that London blames on Moscow.
Britain says Sergei Skripal and his daughter, who are critically ill in hospital, were targeted with the Soviet-era military-grade nerve agent Novichok. It accuses Moscow of stockpiling the toxin and investigating how to use it in assassinations.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who easily won another six-year term on Sunday, said the claims were nonsense and that Russia had destroyed all its chemical weapons. 
Putin dismisses charges Russia poisoned ex-spy in Britain
While the Kremlin told Britain to back up its assertions or apologise, Britain’s fellow EU members have offered the country “unqualified solidarity”.

Skripal, a former colonel in Russian military intelligence who betrayed dozens of Russian agents to Britain, was found collapsed along with his daughter on a bench in the small southern city of Salisbury two weeks ago.
The identification of Novichok as the weapon has become the central pillar of Britain’s case for Russia’s culpability. Each has expelled 23 of the other’s diplomats as their relations have sunk to a post-Cold War low.
Nerve agent used to poison ex-Russian spy – British police
On Monday, inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) began running independent tests on samples taken from Salisbury to verify the British analysis, said an OPCW source speaking on condition of anonymity.
“The team from The Hague will meet with officials from the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory and the police to discuss the process for collecting samples, including environmental ones,” Britain’s Foreign Office said.
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said on Monday, before meeting his European Union counterparts in Brussels, that Russian denials of responsibility were “increasingly absurd”.

“This is a classic Russian strategy of trying to conceal the needle of truth in a haystack of lies and obfuscation. They’re not fooling anybody anymore,” Johnson told reporters.
“There is scarcely a country around the table here in Brussels that has not been affected in recent years by some kind of malign or disruptive Russian behaviour.”
EU diplomats cautioned there was no immediate prospect of fresh economic sanctions on Russia, but the assembled EU foreign ministers did offer strong verbal support.
‘Drivel’: Putin denies Russia poisoned ex-spy in UK
“The European Union takes extremely seriously the UK government’s assessment that it is highly likely that the Russian Federation is responsible,” said their statement.
They said using a nerve agent for the first time on European soil for 70 years would be a clear violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, which the OPCW safeguards, and that it represented a “security threat to us all”.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said it regretted the EU comments, which it said were motivated by “anti-Russian reflexes.”
“This state of affairs, of course, does not bring honour on the common foreign policy of the EU,” it said in a statement.
British police meanwhile said the investigation into the attack was likely to take many months since it was a highly complex operation.
“This is one of the largest and most complex investigations undertaken by British counter terrorism policing,” the Metropolitan Police said in a statement.


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Britain

Inspectors analyse ‘Novichok’ toxin used on ex-spy as European Union backs Britain in spat with Russia

epa06614478 A police notice in Salisbury, Wiltshire, Britain, 19 March 2018. International chemical weapons inspectors are expected to arrive in Britain and visit Porton Down on 19 March. Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter were attacked with a nerve agent on 04 March 2018. EPA-EFE/ANDY RAIN

This undated image taken from the Facebook page of Yulia Skripal on March 8, 2018 allegedly shows Yulia Skripal, the daughter of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, in an unknown location. British detectives were scrambling on March 8 to uncover who poisoned a Russian former double-agent and his daughter with a nerve agent, as doctors battled to save their lives and that of a policeman who also fell ill after coming to their aid. Sergei Skripal, 66, who moved to Britain in a 2010 spy swap, is in a critical condition in hospital along with his daughter Yulia after they collapsed on a bench outside a shopping centre on Sunday. The brazen poisoning in the southwestern English city of Salisbury is already being linked with Russia by British politicians and the media, sparking an angry response in Moscow. / AFP PHOTO / FACEBOOK PAGE OF YULIA SKRIPAL / - / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT "AFP PHOTO / FACEBOOK ACCOUNT OF YULIA SKRIPAL" - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - D

A vehicle wrapped in blue tarpaulin is removed from Larkhill Road in Durrington, a few kilometres north of Salisbury, England, on the back of an Army truck, on March 19, 2018, as the investigation into the suspected nerve agent attack on Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia continues. Photo: PA via AP

Russia hits back in spy poisoning row as experts called in

The perimeter of Porton Down, the British Ministry of Defence’s laboratory near Salisbury. Photo: EPA

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov is seen before Russian President Vladimir Putin's annual state of the nation address to the Federal Assembly in Moscow, Russia March 1, 2018. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

FILE PHOTO: Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May visits the city where former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with a nerve agent, in Salisbury, Britain March 15, 2018. REUTERS/Toby Melville/Pool/File Photo

Personel collate sample after swabbing railings near a bench covered in a protective tent at The Maltings shopping centre in Salisbury, southern England, on March 16, 2018, as investigations and operations continue in connection with the major incident sparked after a man and a woman were apparently poisoned in a nerve agent attack in Salisbury on March 4. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said March 16, the alliance did not want a return to Cold War hostilities with Russia while expressing support for Britain's strong stance on the nerve agent attack. / AFP PHOTO / Ben STANSALL

Police officers stand at the cordon near the tent covering the park bench where former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found poisoned in Salisbury, Britain, March 19, 2018. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls

epa06614241 A red flag flies at the perimeter of Porton Down, the British Ministry of Defence's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory in Porton near Salisbury, Wiltshire, Britain, 19 March 2018. Reports state that International chemical weapons inspectors are expected to arrive in the Britain 19 March. Skripal aged 66 and his daughter Yulia, aged 33 were found suffering from extreme exposure to a rare nerve agent on 04 March 2018. Skripal and his daughter Yulia remain in a 'very serious' condition. EPA-EFE/ANDY RAIN

Putin dismisses as ‘rubbish, drivel, nonsense’ charges Russia poisoned ex-spy in Britain

Russian President Vladimir Putin at his election headquarters in Moscow, Russia, on March 18, 2018. He described allegations Russia was behind the poison attack on a former Russian agents as ‘nonsense.’ Photo: Pool via Reuters

FILE - In this Friday, March 16, 2018 file photo, Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson speaks at a joint press conference with the Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz during a visit to the Battle of Britain Bunker, in Uxbridge, England. Britain’s foreign secretary said Sunday, March 18, 2018 that the trail of blame for the poisoning of a former spy “leads inexorably to the Kremlin,” after a Russian envoy suggested the nerve agent involved could have come from a U.K. lab. (Tolga Akmen/Pool Photo via AP, File)