The two people wanted for the Novichok poisoning were members of Russia’s “military intelligence service” acting on orders from the Russian state, British Prime Minister Theresa May said Wednesday.

“Based on a body of intelligence the government has concluded that the two individuals named by the police… are officers of the Russian military intelligence service, also known as the GRU,” she said.

“So this was not a rogue operation. It was almost certainly also approved outside the GRU at a senior level of the Russian state.”

Earlier Wednesday, the Crown Prosecution Service announced Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov were charged in absentia with conspiracy to murder, attempted murder and use of the nerve agent Novichok against ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

Alexander Petrov (left) and Ruslan Boshirov are charged with using novichok to poison an ex-spy and his daughter.

AAP

Prosecutor Sue Hemming said they had considered the evidence and concluded “there is sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction and it is clearly in the public interest to charge Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, who are Russian nationals.”

Both men are aged about 40.

However she said the UK was not asking Moscow to extradite the men because Russian law forbids extradition of the country’s citizens.

Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in March 2018.

AAP

Russia has denied any involvement in the March incident and suggested the British security services carried out the attack to stoke anti-Moscow hysteria.

Police detail suspects’ movements

Neil Basu, Head of Counter Terrorism policing, said the two suspects were travelling under aliases but were around 40 years old and had genuine Russian passports.

Basu said traces of Novichok contamination were found in the London hotel room where the two men had stayed.

He said they arrived in Britain on March 2 and left on March 4.

They travelled by train to Salisbury two days in a row and believe the first trip was a reconnaissance mission. 

“Tests were carried out in the hotel room where the suspects had stayed.

Two swabs showed contamination of Novichok of levels below that which would cause concern for public health,” Basu said.

CCTV image of Russian Ruslan Boshirov arriving at Gatwick airport.

UK Police

The pair flew out of Britain the night of March 4, the day the Skripals were poisoned.  

Russia on Wednesday said it did not recognise the names of the two Russians named by police as suspects.

“The names published by the media, like their photographs, mean nothing to us,” Maria Zakharova, the Russian foreign ministry’s spokeswoman, told the TASS news agency. 

Police have appealed for any information about the two men, urging anyone who may have seen them to contact police. 

Diplomatic expulsions

The March poisoning sparked a diplomatic row that led to tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions between Britain and its allies and Russia, while the United States also imposed sanctions.

The Skripals and Bailey both recovered, but on June 30, a British couple fell ill from the same type of nerve agent in the nearby town of Amesbury.

One of them, 44-year-old mother of three Dawn Sturgess, died on July 8. 

Her partner Charlie Rowley was discharged, although he later went back to hospital and is currently being treated for meningitis and loss of eyesight.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), a global watchdog, on Tuesday confirmed that Novichok was involved in their poisoning.

Police said Wednesday that their case is now part of the Skirpal investigation.

“We do not believe Dawn and Charlie were deliberately targeted, but became victims as a result of the recklessness in which such a toxic nerve agent was disposed of,” Basu said.

Novichok is a military-grade nerve agent developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War.