Security services pinpoint a Russian lab they believe made the nerve agent used in Salisbury attack
Sources are not 100 per cent certain about the location but are highly confident
A RUSSIAN lab has been pinpointed by security services as the likely manufacturer of the nerve agent used in the Salisbury attack.
Security sources have claimed that they are not 100 per cent certain on the location but they have a high degree of confidence.
A Whitehall source told they knew by the first Cobra meeting that it "was overwhelmingly likely to come from Russia.”
The sources also claim that the Russians conducted tests to see whether novichok could be used for assassinations.
Head of the defence laboratory at Porton Down in Wiltshire, Gary Aitkenhead, admitted that it was unable to verify that the never agent came from Russia, and a tweet from the Foreign Office referring to that was deleted.
This comes after The Sun exclusively revealed that the Yasenevo lab was one of the few labs that manufacture novichok.
The lab, run by Russia’s SVR spy service on Moscows outskirts, is one of a handful of labs in the world that produces the dangerous nerve agent, security sources claim.
Meanwhile Sergei Skripal, 66, remains in a critical condition following the attack a month ago, but his daughter Yulia, 33, is conscious and believed to be communicating.
It comes as Russia has called for the United Nations Security Council to meet on Thursday to discuss the Salisbury attack after it lost a bid to stage a joint investigation with the UK into the poisoning.
Boris Johnson has attacked Moscow for trying to "obscure the truth and confuse the public" about the nerve-agent assault on Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.
Moscow requested a meeting of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague on Wednesday to insist its experts must be involved in the testing programme and probe.
But it lost the vote after Britain told the extraordinary meeting the demand was a sign the federation was "nervous" of what the inquiries will find.
Just six of the 41 members backed Russia while 15 voted against, 17 abstained, two were absent, and one was not entitled to vote.
Nick Heath, deputy British ambassador to The Hague, said Russia had failed again in its attempts to "frustrate the process of justice".
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Russian officials speaking after the meeting concluded said they had presented a "common sense" case and pointed to the "lies by Tony Blair" over Iraq as they criticised the intelligence about the attack.
The deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russian news agency Tass said there is "no trust in Great Britain, it is impossible to trust London" after its continuous "misconduct" and the unacceptable rhetoric against Russia.
But Ben Wallace, the security minister, rejected claims the government had contradicted itself, pointing to chemical analysis and intelligence indicating Russia had created and stockpiled Novichok.
He said: “It is Russia that is putting forward multiple versions of events and obfuscating the truth.”