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UK intelligence may try to harass, or frame Russians visiting Stonehenge, embassy warns

The embassy cautioned it citizens visiting Stonehenge that British secret services might try to harass or frame Russian visitors over UK’s unresolved Skripal incident

© Ben Birchall/PA via AP

LONDON, August 24. /TASS/. Russians visiting the Stonehenge prehistoric monument in England risk drawing the attention of British secret services searching for evidence in relation to the poisoning of former Russian military intelligence Colonel Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, since the famous site is located not far from the city of the Salisbury where the alleged poisoning took place, the Russian embassy in London said on Twitter.

Read also

First package of US sanctions against Russia over Skripals affair takes effect

"Advice to Russian citizens: when planning trips to Stonehenge and Salisbury, consider the risk of unwittingly drawing attention of British secret services struggling to produce evidence of Russian involvement in the Skripal poisoning," the tweet reads.

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova suggested at a briefing on Thursday that Russians visiting the Salisbury area should be cautions and carry the telephone numbers of Russian diplomatic missions in the United Kingdom. She also pointed out that the Porton Down chemical weapons research establishment was located in the area.

British poisonings

According to London, Sergei Skripal, who had been convicted in Russia of spying for Great Britain and later swapped for Russian intelligence officers, and his daughter Yulia suffered the effects of an alleged nerve agent in the British city of Salisbury on March 4. Claiming that the substance used in the attack had been a Novichok-class nerve agent developed in the Soviet Union, London rushed to accuse Russia of being involved in the incident. Moscow rejected all of the United Kingdom’s accusations. Chief Executive of the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) at Porton Down Gary Aitkenhead said later that British experts had been unable to identify the origin of the nerve agent used in the attack on the Skripals.

On June 30, 44-year-old Dawn Sturgess and 45-year-old Charles Rowley were hospitalized in critical condition in the British town of Amesbury. The Metropolitan Police went on to claim that the two had been exposed to Novichok, the same nerve agent that was allegedly used in the Skripal poisoning. After being mysteriously exposed to a nerve agent and falling into a coma, Sturgess died on July 8 while Rowley managed to recover.

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