LONDON, April 17./TASS/. The UK is destroying the important evidence in the Skripal poisoning case "to cover up the evidence of the staged provocation against Russia', the Russian Embassy in London reports in comments on the start of an operation to decontaminate the allegedly contaminated sites in Salisbury.
The Embassy came to the conclusion that "the so-called decontamination, which includes ‘incinerating of potentially contaminated objects’, is an element of the strategy aiming to destroy the important and valuable evidence". "Similar approach has already been used in the case of putting down Mr Skripal’s pet animals," it said.
"In other words, this flagrant violation of the norms of international law by the UK is intended to cover up the evidence of the staged provocation against Russia," the Embassy said.
It also commented on data of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs of the UK that announced on Tuesday that the nerve agent used to poison Sergei and Yulia Skripal "was delivered in a liquid form".
"We are not surprised by the appearance of another version of the Salisbury poisoning. As usual, the Embassy learned about it from the media. The British authorities still do not consider it necessary to officially inform us on the investigation progress," the Russian Embassy stressed.
On March 4, former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal, 66, who had been earlier sentenced in Russia for spying for the UK, and his daughter Yulia, 33, were found unconscious on a bench near the Maltings shopping center in Salisbury, UK. Police said they had been exposed to a nerve agent.
Later, London claimed that the toxin of Novichok-class had been allegedly developed in Russia. With that, the UK rushed to accuse Russia of being involved, while failing to produce any evidence. Moscow refuted the accusations that it had participated in the incident and points out that neither the Soviet Union nor Russia have ever done research into that toxic chemical.
In its report on April 12, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) confirmed the conclusions of British investigators that Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia had been poisoned in Salisbury by a nerve agent, but failed to establish its origin.