The international chemical weapons watchdog has confirmed the UK's analysis of the type of nerve agent used in the Russian ex-spy poisoning.
Yulia and Sergei Skripal Photo: Facebook/ AFP
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons did not name the nerve agent as Novichok, but said it agreed with the UK's findings on its identity.
Russia, which denies it was behind the attack in Salisbury, called the allegations an "anti-Russian campaign".
UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said: "There can be no doubt what was used."
"There remains no alternative explanation about who was responsible - only Russia has the means, motive and record."
Russian Foreign Ministry information and press director Maria Zakharova said the allegations in relation to the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal were a "clear anti-Russian campaign, the like of which we have not seen in the world for a long time in terms of its scale and lack of principles".
She accused the British authorities of ignoring the "norms of international law, the principles and laws of diplomacy, the elementary rules of human ethics".
She claimed no one except for British authorities had seen the Skripals for more than a month.
She drew comparisons with the case of Alexander Litvinenko, the ex-KGB agent who died in 2006 in London, adding that at least a photograph of Litvinenko had appeared after his poisoning.
A team from the OPCW visited the UK on 19 March, 15 days after the Skripals were found slumped on a park bench in Salisbury and taken to hospital, along with a police officer who was among the first on the scene.
Samples are taken from a bench covered in a protective tent at The Maltings shopping centre in Salisbury, southern England, where former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were apparently poisoned. Photo: AFP
Ms Skripal was discharged from hospital on Monday but the 33-year-old has said her father is "still seriously ill".
The OPCW said it received information about the medical conditions of the Skripals and Det Sgt Nick Bailey, it collected their blood samples, and it gathered samples from the site in Salisbury.
Mr Johnson said the UK had invited the OPCW to test the samples "to ensure strict adherence to international chemical weapons protocols".
UK inspectors from the defence research facility at Porton Down in Wiltshire first identified the nerve agent as belonging to the Novichok group.
The OPCW does identify the toxic chemical by its complex formula but only in the classified report that has not been made public.
In its summary, which has been published online, the report notes the toxic chemical was of "high purity".
The BBC's diplomatic correspondent James Landale said: "This is understood to strengthen the argument that this substance came from Russia because it is more likely to have been created by a state actor with the capability to make the nerve agent."
The report does not name the source of the nerve agent, a subject which is beyond the remit of the inspectors.
The UK has called for a UN Security Council meeting on the OPCW report, likely to be held next week.
- BBC