Spy poisoning row: Britain on the back foot in social media war with Russia

The U.K. said all evidence points to Russia in the case of the former spy poisoned in southern England, in an effort to regain the upper hand in the face of a Russian blitz to discredit its investigation.

“There is no doubt that we have found nerve agent, that nerve agent has been identified to have been manufactured, we believe in Russia, and we believe that the nerve agent, the Novichok type of nerve agent is only capable of being produced by a nation state,” Security Minister Ben Wallace said on Thursday in a BBC radio interview. “We can say that all roads lead to Russia, that we are beyond reasonable doubt that the Russian state is behind this.”

Russia on Thursday will step up its attempts to discredit Britain with a press conference in London by its ambassador, Alexander Yakovenko. Russia has also called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Thursday to discuss the case, which left a former double agent, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter Yulia hospitalized in a critical condition.

Britain has come under pressure from Russia to prove its charges after Gary Aitkenhead, director of the U.K.’s Porton Down laboratory that identified the nerve agent, said his scientists hadn’t determined its source, directly contradicting Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson. That led to the deletion on Wednesday of a Foreign Office tweet that made the same link, prompting a backlash from Russia.