The devastating Salisbury nerve agent could be put in missiles or even hand grenades

In a number of interviews last month to the world’s media, the head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW,) Ahmet Uzumcu, sketched out terrifying details of the nerve agent used in the Salisbury attack.

It was, he said, of high purity and persistence, and would not affected by weather conditions – confirming the British view that this is a military-grade nerve agent called Novichok, which is only made at the secret and closed military town Shikhany in central Russia.

Mr Uzumcu stated that 50-100 grams was used in the attack, a huge amount, enough to kill potentially thousands of people, but OPCW spokespeople more recently has suggested they did not know the amount involved. Perhaps they meant milligrams, rather than grams; that would still be still more than is required for research.

Mysteriously, but not unexpectedly we now learn that the Shikhany laboratories, whence the Novichok came in central Russia, have been bulldozed flat recently. As part of their investigation of the chemical weapon use in Salisbury, the Chemical Weapons Convention, to which Russia is a signatory, would decree that the OPCW should be able to inspect Shikhany and be afforded every assistance by the Russian State.