The resources and expertise involved in producing and using a nerve agent suggest the involvement of a military or intelligence agency, as in two highly publicized episodes last year: Syrian government forces used sarin gas, a nerve agent, against a rebel-held village, and the North Korean government is believed to have been behind the assassination of the half brother of the country’s leader using another nerve agent, VX. “Certainly, a nerve agent is not something an ordinary person can get their hands on,” said Vladimir Ashurkov, a Russian dissident living in Britain who is allied with the Russian opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny. Analysts cite several reasons successive British governments have reacted cautiously to Russian conduct, not least among them being money. “The British government does not investigate Russian money coming in, at all,” Mr. Glenny said, and has not wanted rocky relations to threaten that flow. They say that Britain, like its Western European allies, has also feared the consequences of intensified conflict with Moscow, including cyberwarfare.

Source: New York Times March 07, 2018 18:33 UTC