An open-source investigation has found that a top Russian military intelligence officer coordinated last year's Salisbury chemical attack from a London hideout using his phone and a few messaging apps.
The name of the second suspect in the Salisbury case is actually Alexander Mishkin, the BBC understands. The Bellingcat investigative website says the man who travelled under the alias Alexander Petrov is in reality a military doctor working for Russian intelligence, the GRU.
Washington’s request that other countries also expel Russian diplomats is improper, Uruguay’s Foreign Minister Rodolfo Nin Novoa said. “I did not take this request well, I said it was improper and it should not have been made,” the top diplomat said as cited by the El Pais newspaper.
The G7 leaders have united in condemning the use of chemical weapons in Syria and support recent actions by the US, UK and France to degrade and deter further use. Likewise G7 foreign ministers condemned the nerve agent attack and share the UK's assessment that it is highly likely that the Russian Federation was responsible.