Short story is that these 'Novichoks' are real compounds studied in the USSR at bench scale in the 1970s, at a time when several countries were studying possible new nerve agents.
Russia says Germany’s assertion that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a nerve agent doesn’t back up with evidence.
The Russian foreign ministry also accused Berlin of not cooperating with Moscow on the Navalny case. Separately, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia wanted there to be a full exchange of information on the case. The remarks came after the German government claimed a substance from the deadly nerve agent was found during Navalny’s blood test. Chancellor Angela Merkel also demanded an explanation from Moscow. Navalny is in a medically induced coma. He was airlifted to a Berlin hospital last month. The hospital says he remains in a serious condition though the symptoms of his poisoning are declining.
The story of a secret programme in the late 80s / early 90s to develop a chemical super-weapon named "Novichok" was fabricated by Soviet counter-intelligence to successfully flush Vil Sultanovich Mirzayanov out as a US spy/leaker, and continued after the collapse of the USSR to confuse the US.
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/04/17/an-alternative-explantion-to-the -skripal-mystery/
The authentic looking secret material which he was deliberately given access to as a test of his loyalty did indeed 'find its way' to United States intelligence.
He was arrested in 1992 but the trial collapsed under Yeltsin and he moved to live in the United States in 1995.
The US studied the toxicity of these compounds around 1996, and all indications were they are not as toxic as Sarin or VX.
Their structures have been publicly available since 2008, so anyone with a reasonable lab can make them at bench scale.
