The European Union slaps sanctions on the two most senior officers in Russian military intelligence and identifies the two agents accused by Britain of carrying out a chemical attack.

There is "nothing to suggest" that Novichok caused two people to fall ill in the British town where a Russian ex-spy and his daughter were poisoned by the deadly nerve agent, police say.

British prosecutors yesterday charged two Russians for the attempted murder of a former Russian spy and his daughter with a nerve agent, naming suspects for the first time in a case that has caused one of the biggest East-West rifts in decades.