MOSCOW: A Russian scientist told state media Tuesday he worked on an official program to produce the nerve agent Britain says was used on ex-spy Sergei Skripal, contradicting Moscow’s claims it never developed Novichok.
Leonid Rink told RIA Novosti state news agency he worked on a state-backed program up to the early 1990s, adding that the former double agent and his daughter would be dead had Moscow been involved in his poisoning.
“They are still alive. That means that either it was not the Novichok system at all, or it was badly concocted, carelessly applied,” he said.
“Or straight after the application, the English used an antidote, in which case they would have to have known exactly what the poison was,” he said.
Rink said he worked at a state laboratory in the closed town of Shikhany for 27 years, where the development of Novichok formed the basis of his doctoral dissertation.
“A large group of specialists in Shikhany and Moscow worked on ‘Novichok’,” he said.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov last week said Moscow never had any programs to develop Novichok.
Moscow meanwhile is awaiting the arrival of two dozens diplomats ordered to leave Britain as part of a standoff over a nerve agent attack on British soil.
Britain ordered the 23 diplomats to leave by Tuesday, and they’re expected in Moscow tuesday, according to Russian media reports.
Russia retaliated by expelling 23 British diplomats, who are expected to leave Moscow in the coming days.
Russia denies involvement in the poisoning of ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the British city of Salisbury earlier this month. They remain in critical condition.
Britain accuses Russia of the poisoning, which Western powers see as an example of increasingly aggressive Russian meddling abroad.
International chemical weapons experts took samples Monday of the nerve agent used, which Britain says is the Soviet-developed Novichok. The experts said that they are expecting to have full results in three weeks time.