Theresa May has given Russia until Wednesday to explain why a nerve agent that it has developed was used in the Salisbury attack. She told the House of Commons that it was ‘highly likely’ that Russia was responsible for the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter. She said that Boris Johnson had summoned the Russian Ambassador and put it to him that were only two explanations for what had happened, one that the Russian government itself was responsible or that Moscow has lost control of its stock of deadly nerve agents.
I think it is safe to assume that no explanation, at least not one that would satisfy a reasonable observer, will be provided before Wednesday. So, we are left wondering what the ‘full range of measures’ that May is threatening to implement are.
But her statement that, in the absence of a credible explanation, May will consider ‘that this action amounts to an unlawful use of force by the Russian state against the United Kingdom’, suggests she is planning something much stronger than kicking out a few diplomats.
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