Russia requests Security Council meeting on spy poisoning

Russia has asked for a UN Security Council meeting over the poisoning of a former Russian double agent in Britain, the country's ambassador to the UN announced today.

Vassily Nebenzia said Russia was requesting a meeting tomorrow over the British government's implication of Moscow in the nerve agent attack on former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

Nebenzia said the council would soon receive a letter clarifying the Russian position.

The Kremlin has vehemently denied any involvement in the March 4 attack, which Britain says was carried out with a military-grade nerve agent developed by the Soviet Union.

On March 14, the council held an emergency meeting at the request of Britain over the row, which has triggered a wave of tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions and inflamed tensions between Russia and Western governments.

A few days after the poisoning last month British Prime Minister Theresa May blamed Moscow, saying "there is no plausible alternative explanation."