Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s answer to a question from the Vietnamese and Japanese media, Moscow, March 15, 2018

Question: You referred to Great Britain’s accusations against Russia as nonsense, saying that Russia had no motive. In your opinion, what steps can Russia take in this situation? What can Russia do to bring the truth to light?

Sergey Lavrov: Russia not only can but actually is doing more than anybody else, including the United Kingdom. When the man was discovered with his daughter, Great Britain claimed that it was poisoning and that they had carried out an investigation and come to the conclusion that the toxic agent was made in the USSR and accessible to Russians because not all of their chemical weapons stockpiles had been eliminated. This led to the conclusion that Russia was behind this incident and that it was either ordered by the country’s leadership or resulted from failure to control its chemical weapons stockpiles. Even in the second scenario, Russia was still to blame for the attack, since its chemical weapons had to be eliminated in their entirety.

Almost every word in these accusations requires supporting evidence. Nothing is transparent here. When the British parliament debated this issue, the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn requested that the investigation results be made known to parliament. His request was denied. This in itself would be enough to raise flags in traditional well-established democracies.

As for the rest of it, we are waiting for the United Kingdom to submit an official request using the procedure set forth in the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). But we are being told that this official request consisted of the statement made by Prime Minister Theresa May in parliament and the summoning of the Russian Ambassador by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson. This is not the way things are, and this statement does not make any sense. In accordance with the CWC, the party that seeks to understand what happened on its territory must do so officially and in writing. I have no doubt that our British colleagues know this very well. They have very smart people working for them. The fact that they adamantly refuse to file an official request and intentionally fan the anti-Russia rhetoric in the public arena, with much arrogance and to the point of hysteria, shows that they understand all too well that they do not have any formal pretext for legal action. They are trying to shift the conversation into a political dimension and invoke Russophobia hoping that, as in a number of other cases, the West will follow obediently in their footsteps, especially since the United States fully supported Great Britain.

We have put forward many facts that cannot be ignored, including data from Western research magazines over the last 15 years. Let me reiterate that I am referring to Western publications on toxic agents that Great Britain decided to call Novichok. When the Russian Federation eliminated its chemical weapons stockpile, this work continued and continues to this day, according to Western publications in the US, Great Britain, the Czech Republic and Sweden. It all started in 1991−1992 with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. A number of laboratories that made the toxic agents that are now referred to as Novichok remained in several former Soviet republics, including the Baltic States and Uzbekistan, beside the Russian Federation. The laboratory in Uzbekistan and the country’s stockpiles were eliminated with assistance of US experts. Now it is hard to tell exactly who saw, took or put what in their pocket. But the fact is that a famous chemistry researcher who now lives in the US and who left the USSR, Mr Vil Mirzayanov (and not just him, there were two or three other chemists there), took his documents with him when he somehow landed up in the West. We provided all this evidence. It makes you wonder why they are not willing to discuss it or deny its validity.

Let me share a fact with you. Sergey Skripal and his daughter are alive. Once they recover, and I hope that they do, they could shed some light on this entire incident. No one wants to wait for this to happen. Everything is decided in advance. As our British colleagues have said, they will not show us anything, they know everything, and all that is left for us to do is to plead guilty, followed by a punishment. This is a literal translation of their message from English.

When asked how sure they are that things are the way they think, and I have to say that these questions are coming from Western experts, not Russia, they say that it is “highly possible.” Considering the flexible nature of the English language, it is not serious to build your case around provocative accusations that are merely “highly possible,” including expelling diplomats and threats of deteriorating relations.

The OPCW Executive Council met yesterday in The Hague. Once again, Russia proposed following the procedures stipulated by the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). The British representative said arrogantly that Britain was under no obligation to do so (why I don’t know) and will not do so. As a matter of principle, parties to the CWC may have the possibility of saying that they do not wish to take it to this body. But they did just that! And since they have done so, they have to follow the CWC provisions whereby they have to submit a request to Russia as a suspected country of origin and even a country that allegedly made use of a toxic agent. They need to provide this agent to us so that we can analyse it together with the OPCW experts. After Great Britain files its request, we would have 10 days under the CWC to respond. Moreover, under the procedures set forth in the convention, should Britain be unsatisfied with the reply, the same convention gives it the right to convene an extraordinary session of the OPCW Executive Council to take the relevant decision. Great Britain is not willing to follow any of these procedures, as they said publicly. If, upon hearing this statement and witnessing such behaviour, any other country goes as far as voice its solidarity with London, this is just profanation that defies common sense.

Other avenues are available as well. If they do not want to use the OPCW or the CWC that underpins the OPCW operations, there is also the 1959 European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters. Using the mechanisms envisaged in this convention would be another option. But all they want to say with their big words and rhetoric is that Great Britain is under no obligation to show anything to us or anyone else. They decided that they are beyond any doubt or suspicion, and for this reason they call on everyone to punish the Russian Federation. This is just ridiculous.

You have mentioned the lack of motive. Honestly speaking, it is true that a motive is nowhere to be found. In fact, there is no way the Russian Federation could be suspected of doing it, no matter how you look at it. But even if we speculate on this distorted logic of our Western colleagues, who could think that the Russian Federation would seek to create any problems for itself in the run-up to the presidential election and the FIFA World Cup? There is no motive whatsoever. But those who continue to pressure us, and are looking for new pretexts (after the doping allegations and other things) for complicating the World Cup, they have a motive. Everyone knows it. If we try to understand what drives the actions of the British cabinet, the conservative government (as many Western observers have already said in the media), it is probably clear that London has found itself in a very tight spot in its Brexit talks with the EU. The government’s approval ratings are plummeting. The British public is well aware that they are unable to get from Brussels what they had promised to their people, their voters. The provocation over Sergey Skripal draws attention away from these matters. The second reason may be the fact that the British do not want to be forgotten. They want to remain in the lead. It may be my personal subjective opinion, but I do know the British people quite well. In this case, they have opted for Russophobia for the simple reason that there are fewer and fewer areas where Britain can still take the lead. Let me reiterate that we are open to dialogue, and we said so in The Hague, at the OPCW Executive Council meeting, when we proposed using all the possibilities, and there are quite a few of them, provided by the CWC to investigate and explore this issue. We also propose employing the Council of Europe Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters. Yesterday, at the UN Security Council we proposed adopting a statement by the Security Council President calling on all sides to cooperate in order to establish the truth. But our British colleagues blocked this statement, which proves yet again what I have already said. They do not want the truth. All they want is for everyone to accept what they say at face value. I do not think that they will succeed.