Russian Senator Denies Again Producing Nerve Gas. In Great Britain, the involvement of Russia in fourteen deaths is being investigated. It concerns deaths on British territory that were initially not considered suspicious but were later linked to Russia in the media.
The investigation follows the attack with nerve gas on the former double-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Joelia in Salisbury. The British government says that Russia is probably behind it.
The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov denied this again this morning. He said that the Russian government had asked London to give a sample of the substance with which Skripal was poisoned, but that it was refused.
It would be a military type of nerve gas that originates from the Soviet Union and is called ‘novichock.’ Lavrov said that Russia wants to view material from the British investigation, partly because the 33-year-old Yulia Skripal is a Russian citizen. London should make the substance available to Russian researchers by the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
The British ambassador in Moscow, Laurie Bristow, has been called on the issue. That happened to the Russian ambassador in London, Aleksander Jakovenko, Monday.
The boss at the OPCW, the international organization that fights chemical weapons, Ahmet Uzumcu, has condemned the attack with the chemical. The Skripals are still unconscious and in critical condition in a hospital. A policeman has also come into contact with the dust in Salisbury, but his condition is stable.