An official inquiry by the police and security services into alleged Russian state involvement in a number of deaths in Britain has been ordered by the home secretary, Amber Rudd.

She has set up the inquiry in response to demands from Yvette Cooper, the chair of the Commons home affairs committee, the former Met commissioner Ian Blair and others into alleged Russian state links with up to 14 deaths in Britain.



Announcing the inquiry, Rudd said she did not want to distract from the immediate response to the Salisbury attack. “However, in the weeks to come, I will want to satisfy myself that the allegations are nothing more than that,” she said. “The police and MI5 agree and will assist in that endeavour. I will write to you again with my conclusions.”

Rudd indicated to the Evening Standard on Monday she remained highly sceptical that all 14 deaths could be linked to the Russians, saying: “Well, not all of them – I expect even Lord Blair would say one or two or three or four,” she said.

Blair last week said investigators should “see whether there is some pattern here of people who go out jogging and fall dead, and who are found dead in their house in Surrey and so on”.

Cooper welcomed Rudd’s announcement, saying the government was rightly focused on the immediate response to the Salisbury attack. “But given the gravity of these issues, it is also right that the authorities should reassure us that they have looked at any further allegations or relevant evidence put forward in any other cases,” she said.

“As the home secretary has said in her letter, the government must satisfy itself that the correct finding was reached in each case and the public need to know that relevant questions about wider Russia links have been investigated and answered.”