Two Russian men charged over the Salisbury attack poisonings are officers of Vladimir Putin’s military spy agency, Theresa May has told the House of Commons.

Mr Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, were poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok in March. She describes it as a sickening and despicable act.

Theresa May says that she set out in March why the government concluded that the Russian state was culpable for the poisoning, and said the culprits would be brought to justice.

She says after viewing 11,000 hours of CCTV and reading 1,400 statements, there is sufficient evidence to charge two Russian nationals – Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov.

The prime minister says the pair arrived at Gatwick Airport at 3pm on 2 March having flown from Moscow. They then travelled by train to Victoria, and on to Waterloo, before staying at a hotel in East London on both Friday and Saturday evening.

Theresa May says samples of Novichok were found in the hotel room. On Friday 3 March, the pair made the journey to Salisbury which police believe was to check the area. On Sunday 4th they made the same journey.

She says police have today released CCTV of the two men which immediately places them in close vicinity to the Skripals’ house minutes before the attack, and shows them flying back to Moscow from London at 10:33pm.

Theresa May says the poisoning of Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley involved the same nerve agent, and is being considered as a related incident.