London,
\nBritish police requested military assistance in investigating a nerve agent attack on a former Russian double agent as speculation mounted today about how London could respond if a state actor were to blame.<\/p>\n
Police extended the cordon around the modest suburban home of Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, the quiet city in southwestern England where he and his daughter Yulia were found slumped on a bench on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The pair remains unconscious in a critical but stable condition, while Nick Bailey, one of the first police officers on the scene, is now sitting up and talking after initially being admitted to intensive care.<\/p>\n
With police also hurt in the attack, pressure is intensifying on Prime Minister Theresa May to find and punish the culprits.<\/p>\n
The involvement of \u201ca British citizen, especially a policeman, requires the immediate and strong involvement of the British authorities,\u201d Chatham House analyst Mathieu Boulegue told AFP.<\/p>\n
Around 21 people have been treated, according to Kier Pritchard, chief constable for Wiltshire Police.<\/p>\n
\u201cA number of those have been through the hospital treatment process, they\u2019re having blood tests, they\u2019re having treatment in terms of support and advice,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Authorities are racing to find the source of the nerve agent used against 66-year-old Skripal, who came to Britain in 2010 as part of a spy swap, as politicians warned it bore the hallmarks of an attack by Russia.<\/p>\n
National counter-terrorism police, who are leading the investigation, announced on Friday that they had requested assistance from the military \u201cto remove a number of vehicles and objects from the scene\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cMilitary assistance will continue as necessary during this investigation,\u201d they added, with media reporting that more than 100 personnel may be involved.<\/p>\n
During a visit to the site on Friday, interior minister Amber Rudd called the attack \u201coutrageous\u201d but urged people to \u201cgive the police the space they need to really go through the area carefully, to do their investigation\u201d.<\/p>\n
In response to questions over Russia\u2019s possible involvement, May has said that \u201cif action needs to be taken then the government will do that\u201d.<\/p>\n
Possible responses include the expulsion of some of Russia\u2019s 58 diplomats, some kind of boycott of the 2018 football World Cup or an increased British military presence in eastern Europe.<\/p>\n
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson floated the idea of deepening sanctions against Russian officials, but Britain would have to persuade its international partners.<\/p>\n
Moscow has reacted angrily to the accusations it was involved, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday dismissing them as baseless \u201cpropaganda\u201d.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, however, Russian state TV presenter Kirill Kleimyonov had appeared to deliver a veiled warning, saying: \u201cDon\u2019t choose England as your future country of residence… whether you are a professional traitor to the motherland or whether you hate your country in your spare time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Times newspaper said police were probing whether Skripal\u2019s daughter, who arrived in Britain from Moscow last week, may have inadvertently brought in the nerve agent as a gift.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
London, British police requested military assistance in investigating a nerve agent attack on a former Russian double agent as speculation mounted today about how London could respond if a state actor were to blame. Police extended the cordon around the modest suburban home of Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, the quiet city in southwestern England where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24410,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24409"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24411,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24409\/revisions\/24411"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}