The EU has assured solidarity with Britain in this regard
Just hours after PM Theresa May said that it was likely that Moscow was behind the nerve toxin attack, President Vladimir Putin now faces a midnight deadline to explain how a nerve agent developed by the Soviet Union was used to attack a former Russian double agent in Britain.
Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal had been granted refuge in the UK in 2010 under a “spy swap” but was found unconscious with his 33-year daughter outside a shopping centre in Salisbury last Sunday.
May has given Putin— who faces a presidential election on March 18— until 12am today to explain what happened, or face “much more extensive” measures against the Russian economy.
Meanwhile, the European Union has assured that it will show solidarity with Britain in such a scenario.
A senior EU official Valdis Dombrovskis told media: “”We are very much concerned with the situation, also the findings the UK has so far,” adding: “Of course the UK can count on EU solidarity in this regard.”
May had told MPs yesterday that it was “highly likely” Moscow for the attack was to blame after British officials identified the substance as being part of the Novichok group of nerve agents which were developed by the Soviet military during the 1970s and 1980s.
“It is now clear that Mr Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia,” she had said.
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