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British security services 'track location of Russian lab used to manufacture nerve agent'

BRITISH security services believe that they have pinpointed the location of the covert Russian laboratory that allegedly manufactured the weapons-grade nerve agent used in the attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal.

Using scientific analysis in the days after the attempted murder of the father and daughter in the English city of Salisbury, security officials were able to identify where the novichok poison was made, The Times reports.

A British Government source told The Times: “We knew pretty much by the time of the first Cobra (the emergency co-ordination briefing that took place the same week) that it was overwhelmingly likely to come from Russia.”

The March 4 attack on the former Russian agent and his daughter caused a global uproar, leading to a a mass international push by 23 countries to condemn Moscow for its involvement.

Two Russian diplomats were expelled from Canberra as Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull slammed the “aggressive”, “reckless” behaviour of Vladimir Putin’s government.

The Times reports that Britain knew about the existence of the facility where the novichok poison was made before the attack on former Russian intelligence agent Sergei Skripal, 66, and his 33-year-old daughter.

The pair are still in hospital but Yulia is now “conscious and talking” and improving rapidly since she was found slumped on a bench alongside her father.

It is hoped Yulia will now be able to shed light on how she and dad Sergei ended up being poisoned with the potentially deadly nerve agent.

It has been reported that Yulia Skripal was targeted in the nerve agent attack just days after she gained access to a $200,000 “secret bank account”, her family claim.

According to The Sun, the money belonged to the 33-year-old’s brother Alexander, who died in mysterious circumstances in St Petersburg last year.

Alexander died aged 43, reported Huffpost, while on holiday with his girlfriend in St Petersburg. He was said to have been admitted to hospital for liver failure. Relatives deemed the death as “suspicious”.

BBC Russia suggests that Alexander’s death may have been used to determine where his father lived in the UK.

“We can assume that if the Russian secret services were trying to find out exactly where Sergei Skripal lived, the story of the repatriation of his son’s body could help them very much in obtaining this information.”

Yulia was made power of attorney at the end of February — just days before she was poisoned alongside her Russian ex-spy dad Sergei.

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