Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Russia will not co-operate with the UK's inquiry into how an ex-spy and his daughter were poisoned until it has been given a sample of the substance used, its foreign minister has said.

Sergei Lavrov added that claims of Russian involvement were "rubbish".

UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said the "strength of the support" from other countries was encouraging.

US President Donald Trump said he would take Britain's assessment that Russia was behind the attack "as fact".

Mr Trump said he would be speaking to Theresa May later, adding: "It sounds to me they believe it was Russia base on all the evidence they have".

Answering a separate question by reporters, he added: "As soon as we get the facts straight, if we agree with them, we will condemn Russia or whoever it may be".

Midnight deadline
Former US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson who spoke to Mr Johnson on the phone about the case on Monday before he was sacked had said the US supported the UK's assessment that Russia was likely responsible.

Russia was given a midnight deadline by Prime Minister Theresa May to explain why a Russian-made nerve agent was used in the attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter.

Mr Lavrov said that Russia had been refused access to the nerve agent.

Mrs May's spokesman responded by saying the UK "complies fully with all its obligations under the chemical weapons convention".

Meanwhile, the UK ambassador to Russia, Laurie Bristow, has met the Russian deputy foreign minister in Moscow.

Former double agent Mr Skripal, 66, and his daughter, Yulia, 33, were found slumped on a bench in Salisbury city centre in Wiltshire on 4 March. They remain in a critical but stable condition in hospital.

Det Sgt Nick Bailey, who fell ill attending to the pair, remains seriously ill, but has been talking to his family.

Up to 14 other deaths to be re-examined for Russian links
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Row over Corbyn's Russia spy response
Home Secretary Amber Rudd said the investigation was "going well" after chairing another meeting of the government's emergencies committee Cobra to discuss the case.

Mrs May told the Commons on Monday that the poison used in the attack was a military-grade nerve agent developed by Russia. She said it was part of a group of nerve agents known as Novichok.

"Either this was a direct action by the Russian state against our country, or the Russian government lost control of its potentially catastrophically damaging nerve agent and allowed it to get into the hands of others," she said.

Mrs May said the Foreign Office had summoned Russia's ambassador to "explain which of these two possibilities it is".

She warned that if there was no "credible response" by the end of Tuesday, the UK would conclude there has been an "unlawful use of force" by Moscow.

Meanwhile, Ms Rudd has announced that MI5 and police are to look into claims that as many as 14 deaths on UK soil may be linked to Russia.

Has the UK received international support?
Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said the UK was a "highly valued ally" and described the incident as "of great concern".

He said the use of any nerve agent was "horrendous and completely unacceptable" and said Nato had been in touch with the UK authorities.

He added: "We agree that those responsible - both those who committed the crime and those who ordered it - must face appropriately serious consequences.

"We stand in solidarity with our allies in the United Kingdom and will continue to coordinate closely our responses."

Mrs May also spoke to French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday and the two leaders "agreed that it would be important to continue to act in concert with allies" to address what it called "the wide pattern of aggressive Russian behaviour", her spokesman said.

European commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis was among a number of leading EU figures to express "solidarity" with the UK.

He said: "We are very much concerned with this situation - also with the findings the UK has so far."

Guy Verhofstadt, European Parliament's Brexit co-ordinator, wrote on Twitter: "We stand shoulder to shoulder with the British people.

"It must be made clear that an attack against one EU and Nato country is an attack on all of us."

How could the UK retaliate against Russia?
Mrs May said the UK must "stand ready to take much more extensive measures" against Russia than it had previously.

She said these measures would be set out in the Commons on Wednesday should there be no adequate explanation from Russia.

Britain could expel Russian diplomats, as it did after the poisoning of former Russian Federal Security Service operative Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 with radioactive polonium.

But many argue that this, and the other measures that were taken after that killing - including visa restrictions on Russian officials - did not go far enough.

So what else could the UK do?

Other possible actions could include:

Freezing financial assets
Bans on visas
Boycotting the Fifa World Cup in Russia later this year
Taking Russian broadcasters such as RT (formerly Russia Today) off the air in the UK

*BBC