UK security minister says Putin responsible for nerve agent attack

LONDON — Britain’s security minister says Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin bears ultimate responsibility for the nerve agent attack targeting a former spy in England, also warning that the UK would counter Russian “malign activity” with both overt and covert measures.

Ben Wallace says Putin and his government “controls, funds and directs” the military intelligence unit known as the GRU, which Britain believes used Novichok to try to kill ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal.

Skripal and his daughter Yulia were hospitalized for weeks in critical condition after they were exposed to the Soviet-developed nerve agent in the city of Salisbury on March 4. They are now recovering in a secret location for their own protection.

In the nearby town of Amesbury, local woman Dawn Sturgess died and her boyfriend Charlie Rowley was sickened after they came across remnants of the poison in June.

Wallace tells the BBC that Britain would “push back the Russian malign activity” with “whatever means we have within the law and our capabilities.”

He says Britain would “challenge the Russians in both the overt and the covert space, within the rule of law and in a sophisticated way.”

— AP