Tag Archives: Yulia Skripal

Russia says photos don’t prove its spy was linked to Skripal case

FILE PHOTO: Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov looks on during a visit to the Mazda Sollers Manufacturing Rus joint venture plant of Sollers and Japanese Mazda in Vladivostok, Russia September 10, 2018. Valery Sharifulin/TASS Host Photo Agency/Pool via REUTERS

By Andrey Ostroukh and Andrey Kuzmin

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Friday a likeness between a Russian intelligence colonel and a suspect in the Skripal poisoning case does not prove they are the same person, comparing the resemblance to that of impersonators posing as Lenin.

Former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found slumped on a public bench in the English city of Salisbury in March. Britain says they were poisoned with a nerve agent administered by Russian intelligence officers. A woman later died from what British police say was contact with the poison which her partner found in a discarded perfume bottle.

Russia denies any involvement in the affair, which has deepened its international isolation.

Moscow says two Russian men captured on surveillance footage near the scene of the poisoning were tourists visiting Salisbury twice during a weekend trip to Britain, an explanation London says is so far-fetched as to all but prove Russia’s involvement.

Investigative website Bellingcat this week published a picture of a decorated Russian military intelligence colonel it named as Anatoliy Chepiga who resembles one of the men spotted in the surveillance footage.

“We don’t know to what extent we can make any formal conclusions about who looks like whom, are they alike, where they lived, where they grew up,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call.

“On Red Square there are still 10 Stalins and 15 Lenins running around, and they look remarkably like the originals,” he said, referring to people who dress up as Soviet leaders to pose for photographs with tourists.

Peskov said in order to draw any conclusions, the Russian authorities needed verified information from British officials about the Skripal case, something he said London has been consistently withholding.

“We do not want to participate anymore in the propagation of this issue as a partner of the media,” said Peskov.

(Reporting and writing by Andrey Kuzmin; Editing by Christian Lowe and Peter Graff)

Daughter of poisoned Russian spy declines embassy help: statement

An undated photograph shows Yulia Skripal, daughter of former Russian Spy Sergei Skripal, taken from Yulia Skripal's Facebook account in London, Britain, April 6, 2018. Yulia Skripal/Facebook via REUTERS

LONDON (Reuters) – Yulia Skripal, who was poisoned in Britain last month along with her father, a former Russian spy, said on Wednesday she did not wish to take up the offer of services from the Russian Embassy in London.

In a statement issued on her behalf by British police, Skripal said her father, Sergei, remained seriously ill and she was still suffering from the effects of nerve gas used against them in an attack that led to one of the biggest crises in Britain’s relations with Moscow since the Cold War.

“I have access to friends and family, and I have been made aware of my specific contacts at the Russian Embassy who have kindly offered me their assistance in any way they can,” Yulia Skripal said.

“At the moment I do not wish to avail myself of their services, but, if I change my mind I know how to contact them.”

The Russian Embassy in London has previously said it had not been granted consular access to the 33 year-old woman.

Following Yulia Skripal’s statement, the embassy said: “We continue to insist on a meeting with Yulia and Sergei Skripal. The situation around them looks more and more like a forceful detention or imprisonment.”

Yulia Skripal was discharged from a hospital in the English city of Salisbury on Monday, where, she said, she was treated ” with obvious clinical expertise and with such kindness”.

Skripal said she was not yet strong enough to give a media interview and she said comments made by her cousin to Russian media were not her’s nor those of her father.

“I thank my cousin Viktoria for her concern for us, but ask that she does not visit me or try to contact me for the time being,” the statement quoted her as saying.

The Skripals were in a critical condition for weeks after the March 4 attack before their health improved.

Sergei Skripal, who was recruited by Britain’s MI6, was arrested for treason in Moscow in 2004. He ended up in Britain after being swapped in 2010 for Russian spies caught in the United States.

Britain accused Russia of being behind the nerve agent attack and Western governments including the United States expelled more than 100 Russian diplomats. Russia has denied any involvement in the poisoning and retaliated in kind.

(Writing by William Schomberg; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Yulia Skripal, poisoned with her Russian double-agent father, is getting better

Police officers stand guard outside of the home of former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal, in Salisbury, Britain, March 6, 2018. REUTERS/Toby Melville

By Guy Faulconbridge and Andrew MacAskill

LONDON (Reuters) – The daughter of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal is getting better after spending three weeks in critical condition due to a nerve toxin attack at his home in England, the hospital where she is being treated said on Thursday.

After the first known use of a military-grade nerve agent on European soil since World War Two, Britain blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for the attempted murder, and the West has expelled around 130 Russian diplomats.

Russia has denied using Novichok, a nerve agent first developed by the Soviet military, to attack Skripal. Moscow has said it suspects the British secret services are trying to frame Russia to stoke anti-Russian hysteria.

British counter-terrorism police said they now believe Skripal and his 33-year-old daughter Yulia were poisoned with a nerve toxin that had been left on the front door of their home in the genteel English cathedral city of Salisbury.

“I’m pleased to be able to report an improvement in the condition of Yulia Skripal,” Christine Blanshard, Medical Director for Salisbury District Hospital, said in a statement.

“She has responded well to treatment but continues to receive expert clinical care 24 hours a day,” she said.

Her father remained in a critical but stable condition, the hospital said. Last week, a British judge said the Skripals might have suffered permanent brain damage as a result of the attack.

Police said on Thursday they had placed a cordon around a children’s play area near the Skripal’s modest house as a precaution.

Yulia and her 66-year-old father were found slumped on a bench outside a shopping center in Salisbury on March 4.

Britain has blamed the attempted murder on Russia, and expelled 23 Russians it said were spies working under diplomatic cover in retaliation.

Russia, which denies carrying out the attack, responded by throwing out 23 British diplomats. Moscow has since accused the British secret services of trying to frame Russia to stoke anti-Russian hysteria.

“ENOUGH IS ENOUGH”

The attack on Skripal, a former colonel in Russian military intelligence who betrayed dozens of Russian agents to Britain’s MI6 spy service, has plunged Moscow’s relations with the West to a new post-Cold War low.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said late on Wednesday the Kremlin had underestimated the Western response to the attack, which also injured a British policeman.

Johnson told an audience of ambassadors in London that 27 countries had now moved to expel Russian diplomats over Moscow’s suspected involvement.

“These expulsions represent a moment when a feeling has suddenly crystallized, when years of vexation and provocation have worn the collective patience to breaking point, and when across the world – across three continents – there are countries who are willing to say enough is enough,” Johnson said.

Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, told reporters in Moscow on Thursday Britain was breaking international law by refusing to provide information on Yulia Skripal despite the fact she was a Russian citizen.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia was watching closely a media report that Britain might limit London’s role in marketing Russian debt to investors.

Skripal, recruited by British spies while in Spain, ended up in Britain after a Cold War-style spy swap that brought 10 Russian spies captured in the United States back to Moscow in exchange for those accused by Moscow of spying for the West.

His house, which featured a good-luck horseshoe on the front door, was bought for 260,000 pounds ($360,000) in 2011. Skripal was listed as living there under his own name.

Since emerging from the world of high espionage and betrayal, he has lived modestly in the cathedral city of Salisbury and kept out of the spotlight until he and his daughter were found unconscious on March 4.

In the years since he found refuge in Britain, he lost both a wife and son.

The attack on Skripal has been likened to the killing of ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in Britain. Litvinenko, a critic of Putin, died in London in 2006 after drinking green tea laced with radioactive polonium 210.

Russia denied any involvement in that killing.

An inquiry led by senior British judge Robert Owen found that former KGB bodyguard Andrei Lugovoy and another Russian, Dmitry Kovtun, carried out the murder of Litvinenko as part of an operation probably directed by Russia’s Federal Security Service.

(Additional reporting by Michael Holden and Costas Pitas in London and Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow; Writing by Richard Balmforth and Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Gareth Jones and Raissa Kasolowsky)