The Kremlin has insisted the UK must prove Russia’s role in the poisoning of a former spy or apologise, as the EU called on Moscow to provide “full and complete disclosure of its novichok programme” to international experts.



The demands for proof came as a team of international experts began a visit to Porton Down in Wiltshire on Monday to assess the nerve agent used to poison Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. Experts from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) were invited by the UK to verify the nerve agent, but it will take at least two weeks before they have results.

During a meeting of 28 European foreign ministers in Brussels, the EU issued a statement expressing “unqualified solidarity with the UK”. But they stopped short of threatening new sanctions against Russia and avoided pinning the blame on the Kremlin.

The bloc said it took “extremely seriously the UK government’s assessment that it is highly likely that Russia was responsible”. This did not go as far as an earlier joint statement by France, Germany, the US and UK, which concluded it was “highly likely that Russia was responsible for the attack”.

The EU called on Russia “to address urgently the questions raised by the UK and the international community and to provide immediate, full and complete disclosure of its novichok programme to the OPCW. The use of chemical weapons by anyone under any circumstances is completely unacceptable and constitutes a security threat to us all.”

The EU statement came as Russia demanded proof it was behind the Salisbury attack. “Sooner or later these unsubstantiated allegations will have to be answered for: either backed up with the appropriate evidence or apologised for,” Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said on Monday.

Boris Johnson welcomed the EU’s “unqualified solidarity”, having condemned Moscow’s “increasingly absurd” denials, citing its contradictory claims about Russian production of novichok.

“What people can see is that this is a classic Russian strategy of trying to conceal the needle of truth in a haystack of lies and obfuscation.”

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The foreign secretary said many EU countries had been victims of “malign Russian behaviour” and that Moscow was “not fooling anybody any more”.



Theresa May and EU leaders are expected to discuss the attack at a summit in Brussels on Thursday night.

The EU’s decision not to rush to sanctions was not a surprise, as several ministers had expressed the need for more evidence.



Spain’s Alfonso Dastis said: “We think now the time is for an extended examination of all the elements involved, with the participation of the OPCW.” Belgium’s foreign minister, Didier Reynders, said it was necessary to put pressure on Russia to take part in a proper inquiry.

Meanwhile, the Swedish foreign minister dismissed Russian claims that Sweden was the source of the nerve agent as “ridiculous and totally unfounded”. Margot Wallström said Russia was “trying to make some kind of diversion from the real issues”.

Germany’s foreign minister, Heiko Maas, said Russia would remain a difficult partner for the EU, and questioned the fairness of Sunday’s presidential elections, which Putin won by a landslide.

The Kremlin’s demand for proof from the UK came in response to a question about whether the exacerbation of tensions with the west had boosted Putin’s performance.



Dmitry Peskov said: “I wouldn’t use the phrase ‘exacerbation of tensions with the west’. It’s a question of this stream of slander, that is hard to explain and difficult to understand the motivation for, from the British side towards Russia.”

Putin had rejected as “nonsense” allegations that Russia was behind the attack on the Skripals, which also left a British police officer seriously ill.

Speaking to Emmanuel Macron by phone, Putin said the allegations were unsubstantiated. In a statement on Putin’s return to the Kremlin, the French president avoided congratulating his Russian counterpart directly. Instead, Macron wished success to the Russian people in the modernisation of politics, democracy, as well as economic and social fronts.