MOSCOW, September 7. /TASS/. Moscow finds it highly regrettable that Western countries have aligned themselves with London on the Salisbury incident, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday.
"On September 6, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, the United States and France came out with a joint statement replicating the ungrounded claims to Russia in the context of the Salisbury and Amesbury incidents. It is highly regrettable that the capitals of these five countries have once again aligned themselves with London, which seems to be unable to get over its own incomprehensible phobias. They have picked up the lies and willingly turned a blind eye on the lack of any proof of what actually happened in the United Kingdom with use of toxic agents. So, the travesty of common sense continues," the ministry said.
"We state with regret that some Western politicians, being hostages to their own geopolitical ambitions, keep on creating an image of enemy out of Russia fanning Russophobic moods in their countries," the ministry said. "The reality however calls for something absolutely different, i.e. for consolidation of efforts in tackling real and common threats, first of all, international terrorism."
Moscow has repeatedly said that it has nothing to do with the Salisbury and Amesbury incidents, the ministry stressed. "We have invited the British side more than once to pool efforts to investigate these incidents. The negative reaction to our calls for cooperation and the six-months-long rejection of access to Russian nationals Sergei and Yulia Skripals, who are pictured as the victims of an assassination attempt, only prove that London has failed to find anything to ground its claims. All accusations against us are totally fabricated."
UK Prime Minister Theresa May told British parliament on September 5 about the secret services’ conclusions regarding the investigation of the March 4, 2018, alleged poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury. The conclusion suggested that they had become targets of a special operation by agents of the Russian military intelligence service GRU. May claimed the operation "was almost certainly also approved outside […] at a senior level of the Russian state".
Scotland Yard released a package of photos supposedly showing the two Russians who had poisoned the Skripals. The official story made public by the British authorities suggests the two men entered the country 48 hours before the poisoning. They held official Russian passports issued in the names of Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov. British police officials said the suspects’ names were possibly fictitious.
Britain claims that Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were affected by a nerve gas of the Novichok class in Salisbury on March 4. The British government claimed that Russia was highly likely involved in this incident. Moscow strongly dismissed all speculations on that score, saying that neither the Soviet Union nor Russia had ever had programs for making such agents. Britain’s military chemical laboratory at Porton Down has failed to establish the origin of the substance that poisoned the Skripals.
Two British nationals - Dawn Sturgess and her partner Charles Rawley, suffering from heroin addiction - were taken to hospital in Amesbury in critical condition on June 30. The Scotland Yard official in charge of the investigation later speculated that both had been poisoned by Novichok. On July 8, it was announced that Sturgess had died in hospital. On July 20, Rawley was discharged from hospital only to be admitted again due to vision problems.
On September 5, it was announced that the British police were pushing ahead with the investigation into Salisbury and Amesbury poisonings as one case.