Salisbury Novichok poisoning: the Russian threat is "real" – GCHQ

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Russia's threat to the international community is "real" and "active", warned the head of the GCHQ.

Jeremy Fleming's comments come after the United States, France, Germany and Canada agreed with the United Kingdom that Russia was behind the attack on Salisbury Novichok.

In a speech in Washington, Fleming said that Russia's desire to "undermine" international law was "shameless".

At a meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the attack, Russia rejected the evidence presented by the United Kingdom as "lies".

Fleming, director of the government's intelligence agency, said the GCHQ had backed the police in a "thorough" and "extremely complex" investigation into what happened after the former spy's poisoning Russian Sergei Skripal and his daughter Mars.

The United Kingdom has identified as prime suspects two men, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, who would come from the Russian military intelligence service, the GRU.

The Kremlin called the accusations "unacceptable".

But Fleming said, "The threat from Russia is real, it's active."

He added, "And a strong international alliance of allies will be put in place that is capable of deploying the full range of tools of our national security apparatus."

Addressing the BBC Radio 4's Today program, British ambassador to the UN, Karen Pierce, said she was "very disappointed" that Russia is refusing to go ahead. engage or recognize the seriousness of the situation.

She added that Russia "often has only a negative agenda" when it comes to international affairs.

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A statement by Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel, Donald Trump, Justin Trudeau and Theresa May said Thursday: "We, French, German, American, Canadian and British leaders, reiterate our indignation at the use of a chemical nerve agent, known as Novichok, in Salisbury on March 4. "

The leaders welcomed the progress of the investigation, but urged those who had more information to contact the British authorities.

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"We have every confidence in the British assessment that the two suspects were officers of the Russian military intelligence service, also known as the GRU," the statement added.

Referring to the expulsion of Russian diplomats from their countries in response to the March 4 attack, the leaders said they had already "acted together to disrupt the activities of the GRU".

Leaders said the link with the GRU – revealed on Wednesday – would strengthen their intention to work together against foreign spying networks, the use of chemical weapons and "to defend against any form of malign activity directed against us and our societies ". .

The BBC correspondent in Moscow, Steve Rosenberg, said that Russia was "increasingly considered a rogue nation" by the West, adding that this status would "freeze" the Kremlin.

The UN Security Council, of which Russia is a permanent member, alongside the allies of China and the United Kingdom, the United States and France, has met in New York to discuss the latest progress of the investigation.

Addressing the board, Ms. Pierce, said that the nerve agent's attack was a "direct challenge" to the "rules-based international system that has protected us all since 1945".

"We have lost all hope"

In a long rebuttal, Russia accused the United Kingdom of "disgusting anti-Russian hysteria".

Russian Ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, accused the British authorities of "russiaphobia" and misled the international community and British citizens.

"We have lost hope of finding the truth," he said, adding that the latest developments had been "invented from scratch".

He pointed to a number of "inconsistencies", which he said were "out of the charts", according to the UK.

May told the Commons on Wednesday that the two suspects had entered the UK with Russian passports.

The prime minister told MEPs that the poisoning was "not a fraudulent operation" and that it was "almost certainly" approved at a high level of the Russian state.

UK prosecutors believe that there is sufficient evidence to charge the couple with offenses, including a conspiracy to kill him; attempted murder and use and possession of Novichok in violation of the Chemical Weapons Act.

Russia does not extradite its nationals, but a European arrest warrant has been obtained in case men go to the EU.

Mr Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, were poisoned in Novichok on 4 March. Sgt Nick Bailey also became ill after responding to the Salisbury incident.

Police also linked the attack to poisoning in Novichok on June 30 in the nearby town of Amesbury, which resulted in the death of Dawn Sturgess, a mother of three 44-year-old children, and harmed her Charlie Rowley friend.