The defector Sergei Skripal and his daughter Julia, who were victims of poisoning with an unnamed neuromuscular agent, remain in the intensive care unit of the Salisbury hospital in grave condition. The British authorities are slow to officially announce what kind of poison was used against the former Soviet officer, and experts can only speculate. The former commander of the British chemical and biological counterterrorism forces, Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, suggested that a rare nerve agent was used against Skripal, which was developed in the USSR.

"Zarin and VX have officially sacked, so there is" Novice "," the expert told Daily Express.

This substance, which is known extremely little, can not be detected with standard checks. There is no official information about the "Novice". It is believed that his development began in the USSR in the 1970s and he is several times more poisonous than the VX that killed his brother Kim Jong-un last year.

Bretton-Gordon says that it was enough for Skripal to just touch the "Novice", for example, when opening the parcel, so that the poison would work.

This would require a very small amount of poison.