Russia slams UK at UN Security Council meeting on nerve agent attack

Russia, at a United Nations Security Council meeting, warned the British government Thursday it was “playing with fire” with accusations that Moscow was behind the poisoning of a Russian former spy and his daughter in the United Kingdom.

Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia blasted the UK, calling the allegations against Russia a “fake story.”

The Russian UN diplomat warned “we have told our British colleagues that they are playing with fire and they will be sorry.”

Asked after the meeting what he meant by saying the UK would be sorry, Nebenzi replied that if the UK’s accusation was untrue, “a normal person should be sorry for that.”

He accused the United Kingdom of turning other countries against Russia.

“You started a wave that even reached New York,” he said.

Moscow, emboldened after the UK was forced to withdraw a claim that its scientists had pinned the blame on Russia for the attack, further attempted to embarrass Britain in front of its international allies.

But the UN ambassador from the UK, Karen Pierce, said she would not be lectured by Russia, which she said had blocked inquiries into the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

“Everything we have done … has been consistent with the Convention on Chemical Weapons,” she said.

Russia refused to help when the UK asked early in the investigation, Pierce said.

Pierce told the Council “we all know why that investigation is underway. It’s because a military-grade nerve agent was used in an attempt to kill civilians on British soil. It was carried out recklessly and it was carried out without regard for public safety.”

She questioned the need for Thursday’s meeting, saying the chemical weapons watchdog, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, has yet to release its report on the incident.

Battle of barbs continues

A month after former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in the English city of Salisbury, the United Kingdom and Russia remain locked in a battle over who is to blame.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May has said it was “highly likely” the attack was ordered by the Russian government. The Kremlin has repeatedly denied the accusation. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday that the affair was a “pretext” for the expulsion of Russian diplomats around the world.

On Wednesday, Moscow failed in its efforts to persuade OPCW to allow a joint UK-Russia investigation into the attack. The OPCW is already carrying out an independent investigation at the UK’s request, and expects to receive the results of its analysis within a week. Britain is also carrying out its own inquiry, with support from the OPCW.

Attention has turned to the United Nations. It was the second time the Security Council discussed the poisoning. At a March 15 meeting that was called by the UK, US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley blasted the Russian government for the attack and called for a firm international response.

Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, remain in Salisbury District Hospital following the attack on March 4. Sergei Skripal is described as in a critical but stable condition.

Approved by the Row (Rich Phillips) 6/3/2018

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Yulia Skripal announced Thursday that she had woken up “over a week ago” and that her “strength is growing daily.”

“I am grateful for the interest in me and for the many messages of goodwill that I have received,” Skripal said in a statement released on her behalf by London’s Metropolitan Police.

“I have many people to thank for my recovery and would especially like to mention the people of Salisbury that came to my aid when my father and I were incapacitated. Further than that, I would like to thank the staff at Salisbury District Hospital for their care and professionalism,” she said.

“I am sure you appreciate that the entire episode is somewhat disorientating, and I hope that you’ll respect my privacy and that of my family during the period of my convalescence,” she added.

Pierce said the UK has relayed a request for a visit from a Russian consular official to Skripal.

“We await her response,” Pierce said.

A Russian state television station reported Thursday that Viktoria Skripal, the cousin of Yulia Skripal, said she had spoken to Yulia by phone.

UK experts believe the Skripals were poisoned with a Russian-made nerve agent, Novichok.

The Times of London, citing unnamed sources, reported on Thursday that UK security services had pinpointed the location of the Russian laboratory that manufactured the nerve agent.

Putin: Common sense must prevail

On Wednesday, speaking at a trilateral summit with Turkey and Iran, Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters he wanted to see “a healthy political process” based on international law.

“We are not expecting anything but common sense to prevail; international relations will not tolerate the recent damage done,” he said.

The UK expelled 23 Russian diplomats in the wake of the attack, sparking a wave of similar moves by UK allies around the world. The US expelled 60 Russian diplomats as part of the international effort. Moscow responded by kicking out diplomats from at least 23 countries, including 60 American diplomats. It also ordered the closure of the US consulate in St. Petersburg.

Lavrov said Thursday that Russia wants “to find the truth” about the poisoning in Salisbury and that “provocations are being arranged” in the Skripal case to demonize Russia.

Related article UK government deletes tweet about Russian spy's poisoning

He claimed that many countries had been pressured into supporting the UK and described the mass expulsion of Russian diplomats as “an open mocking of diplomatic ethics” that had not seen for a long time.

Russian Ambassador to the United Kingdom Alexander Yakovenko told a news conference Thursday that Russia has “no information about Yulia Skripal, we don’t know about Sergei.”

Speaking to reporters at the Russian Embassy in London, Yakovenko said Yulia’s cousin Viktoria was “waiting for the visa in Moscow, a British visa. We will see what will be the outcome of that visit.”

He repeated Russia’s complaint that Britain is not allowing it access to its citizens, Sergei and Yulia Skripal, or to the British investigation into their poisoning. The UK government must be “transparent” about the evidence, he said.

Yakovenko said Russia would accept the result of the OPCW investigation – but suggested that its validity would depend on which nations’ experts were involved. “These results should be confirmed by the international community, so we want to see who are the experts,” he said.

Questions around nerve agent’s source

Questions continue to dog the investigation into the attack on the Skripals, who were found slumped on a bench at an outdoor shopping complex in Salisbury. UK police believe they came into contact with the military-grade nerve agent on Skripal’s front door.

On Tuesday, UK scientists said that while they had identified the nerve agent as Novichok, they were unable to say exactly where it had been manufactured.

This is an alleged image of the daughter of former Russian Spy Sergei Skripal, Yulia Skripal taken from Yulia Skipal's Facebook account on Tuesday March 6, 2018. British counterterrorism police said Tuesday that they are now leading the investigating into the unexplained illness of a former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, although it hasn't been declared a terrorist incident. The Skripals were taken ill in Salisbury southwest England on Sunday. (Yulia Skripal/Facebook via AP)

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“We have not identified the precise source, but we have provided the scientific info to government, who have then used a number of other sources to piece together the conclusions you have come to,” Gary Aitkenhead, chief executive of the UK government laboratory at Porton Down, told Sky News on Tuesday.

Further complicating the picture, the UK Foreign Office confirmed on Wednesday it had deleted a tweet that claimed that British chemical weapons experts believed Russia had produced the nerve agent. The Foreign Office said the tweet was “truncated and did not accurately report” a briefing by the British ambassador to Moscow last month.

The British government says the scientific analysis from Porton Down forms only part of the picture. It insists that only Russia had the capability to carry out the attack, that Moscow had identified former double agents as legitimate targets, and was known for its involvement in state-sponsored attacks in the past.

In its report on Thursday, the Times of London cited security sources claiming that the location for the manufacture of the Novichok had been identified “using scientific analysis and intelligence in the days after the attempted murder of Sergei and Yulia Skripal a month ago.”

The Times said security sources didn’t have “100% certainty” but there was a high degree of confidence in the location. The UK government had known about the facility’s existence before the attack on March 4, it added.

The UK Foreign Office refused to comment on The Times’ report. “We have nothing more to add to that story,” a spokesman told CNN.

CNN’s Tony Marco and Sebastian Shukla contributed to this report.