Russia accuses UK, US in spy poisoning

Vladimir Putin said the meeting of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons would draw a line under the incident. Pic/AFP

Russia has accused British and US secret services of being behind the poisoning of a Russian former double agent as the world's chemical weapons watchdog held a closed-door meeting on the incident at Moscow's request.

Russian foreign intelligence chief Sergei Naryshkin in a speech in Moscow said the poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia with a nerve agent was a "grotesque provocation... that was crudely concocted by the British and American security services" with the intention of implicating Russia.

He also warned that Moscow and the West must avoid escalating their current standoff to the dangerous levels reached at the height of the Cold War. British and Russian officials faced off at a closed-door meeting of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for the first time since the poisoning of the Skripals on March 4.