The UK has sanctioned Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency in its entirety, after an inquiry found Vladimir Putin bears “moral responsibility” for the nerve agent death of Dawn Sturgess.

The measures also hit 11 people linked to state-sponsored hostile activity, and Moscow’s ambassador has been summoned to the Foreign Office.

It comes after the independent inquiry concluded the Russian president was “astonishingly reckless” for deploying Novichok on UK soil in 2018. The chemical weapon, left in a discarded perfume bottle, killed Ms Sturgess in Amesbury, Wiltshire.

It followed the attempted murder of former spy Sergei Skripal , his daughter Yulia and then-police officer Nick Bailey, who were poisoned in nearby Salisbury in March that year.

They were harmed when members of a

See Full Page