Yesterday the
Prime Minister Theresa May updated the House of Commons on the steps that the
Government is taking to respond to the reckless and despicable act in Salisbury
last Sunday:
"It is now
clear that Sergei and Yulia Skripal were poisoned with a military-grade nerve
agent of a type developed by Russia. The Government has concluded that it is
highly likely that Russia was responsible for the act against Mr Skripal and
his daughter. There are therefore only two plausible explanations for what
happened in Salisbury on 4th March. Either this was a direct act by
the Russian State against our country, or the Russian government lost control
of this potentially catastrophically damaging nerve agent and allowed it to get
into the hands of others.
The Foreign
Secretary yesterday summoned the Russian Ambassador to the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office and asked him to explain which of these two possibilities
it is, and therefore to account for how this Russian-produced nerve agent could
have been deployed in Salisbury against Mr Skripal and his daughter. He has
requested the Russian Government’s response by the end of today.
We must now
stand ready to take much more extensive measures against Russia. On Wednesday
we will consider in detail the response from the Russian State. Should there be
no credible response we will conclude that this action amounts to an unlawful
use of force by the Russian State against the United Kingdom. This attempted
murder using a weapons-grade nerve agent in a British town was not just a crime
against the Skripals. It was an indiscriminate and reckless act against the
United Kingdom, putting the lives of innocent civilians at risk."
