LONDON, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- The British government on Thursday announced sanctions on Russian military intelligence agency GRU after an official report found that the GRU is linked to the death of a British national on British soil seven years ago.
The government also summoned the Russian ambassador to answer for what it called "Russia's ongoing campaign of hostile activity" against Britain.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova rejected the fresh sanctions on the GRU, TASS news agency reported later in the day.
"The Russian side does not recognize the illegitimate sanctions imposed under far-fetched pretexts bypassing the UN Security Council, and reserves the right to take retaliatory measures," she said.
In June 2018, a British couple in the southern British town of Amesbury was admitted to hospital after exposure to a deadly nerve agent named Novichok in a bottle. While her partner survived, 44-year-old Dawn Sturgess died, reportedly as a result of the poisoning.
In March that year, former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned by the same agent in Salisbury, about 11 km away from Amesbury, but survived.
Thursday's public report said that the Novichok found in Amesbury "came from the same manufacturing batch as that found in Salisbury," and the bottle leading to the death of Sturgess was likely discarded by the alleged poisoners of Sergei Skripal, after being used to poison him and his daughter.
The report concluded that the responsibility of Sturgess's death lies with the three alleged poisoners of the Salisbury event, who the report said were GRU members.
"This Novichok was developed and held by Russia in contravention of the Chemical Weapons Convention," the British government said in a statement.
Russia in 2018 denied involvement in the two poisoning incidents, calling the accusations groundless and unacceptable. ■