Putin spokesman accuses UK of 'asking questions and being unready to listen to answers' after British ambassador snubs meeting

Kremlin says extraordinary meeting was due to discuss poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal

Vladimir Putin’s spokesman has accused the UK of “asking questions but being unprepared for the answers” after the British ambassador decided to snub a meeting with Russian officials over the poisoning of Sergei Skripal.

Dmitry Peskov said the decision was “an eloquent example of the absurd situation”. Russia denies any involvement in the attack on the former spy in Salisbury, which prompted the UK to eject 23 Russian diplomats from London this week.

Foreign ambassadors in Moscow were summoned on Wednesday to an extraordinary meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to Mr Putin’s spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, the briefing would touch on the Skripal poisoning, which she described as “situation around the British claims about the use of poisonous substances on its territory.”

The British embassy confirmed its ambassador Laurie Bristow would not be attending and that it planned only “working-level attendance” at the meeting.

It comes after Russia announced it would eject 23 British diplomats from the country in a like-for-like retaliation to the UK ejecting Moscow’s envoys from London. The UK diplomats have been told they must leave Russia by Saturday.

Moscow’s own representatives left the UK on Tuesday. Staff at the Russian embassy in Kensington, west London, waved off a procession of diplomatic cars carrying the 23 staff and their families to Stansted Airport, where they boarded a chartered flight to Moscow.

Theresa May expelled the diplomats last Wednesday, claiming they were “undeclared intelligence officers”, after the Kremlin failed to respond to demands to explain how the Soviet-made Novichok agent which poisoned Mr Skripal had entered the UK.

In retaliation to the measures, Moscow announced it would eject UK diplomats, shut down the British consulate in St Petersburg, and force the British Council to stop all activities in Russia. The Russian foreign ministry also warned of potential further measures if Britain takes any more “unfriendly actions” against the country.

The UK Foreign Office said in a statement it had “anticipated a response of this kind” and the National Security Council would meet ”to consider next steps”.

It insisted there was “no alternative conclusion other than that the Russian State was culpable” but said it was not in the UK’s national interest “to break off all dialogue between our countries”.

“The onus remains on the Russian state to account for their actions and to comply with their international obligations,” the Foreign Office statement concluded.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson accused the Kremlin of constructing a “haystack of lies” to cover its role in the attack on Mr Skripal and his daughter Yulia, who were found unconscious on a bench on 4 March.

Mr Putin’s administration has repeatedly denied any involvement in the case and has said neither Russia nor the Soviet Union developed Novichok at all.

Ms Zakahrova dismissed the accounts of two Russian scientists who independently stated they were involved in the poison’s creation at chemicals weapons laboratories in the Soviet era. The scientists were quoted in separate reports in the Russian media on Tuesday.

Mr Putin’s spokeswoman described the claims as “memories” and “hypotheses” and claimed accounts were designed to deflect “the failure of the UK to provide Russia with evidence”.