British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said on Sunday that Russia has been stockpiling the deadly nerve agent used to poison a Russian former double agent in England and has been investigating how such weapons can be used in assassinations. Britain has said Russia used the Soviet-era nerve agent called Novichok to attack Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the first known offensive use of such a weapon on European soil since World War II. Britain and Russia have each expelled 23 diplomats over the attack as relations between the two countries crash to a post-Cold War low. The foreign ministry said that if Russia has been stockpiling nerve agents this would amount to a violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, of which Moscow is a signatory. Russia’s ambassador to the European Union Vladimir Chizhov told the same programme that his country has destroyed its reserves of such substances and a British research laboratory could be the source of the nerve agent used in the attack.

Source: Dhaka Tribune March 18, 2018 12:00 UTC