According to the London Times a Russian military research base has been identified in a British intelligence briefing for its allies as the source of the nerve agent used against the former Russian agent Sergei Scripal and his daughter Yulia at Salisbury.
The gathering was used to persuade world leaders that Moscow was behind the poisoning and reached the conclusion that the Novichok chemical was produced at the Shikhany facility in Southwest Russia. The briefing included suggestions that Shikhany had been used during the past decade to test whether the nerve agent could be utilized for assassinations abroad.