LONDON, September 13. /TASS/. The Russian Embassy in the UK did not inform Britain through official channels that the two men who London claims had attempted to poison Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia had been identified and found, the embassy’s press officer told reporters on Thursday.
"The Embassy has not officially informed [London about that by sending a diplomatic note]," the Russian diplomat noted.
On Wednesday, Russian President Putin said answering questions at the plenary session of the Fourth Eastern Economic Forum that the Skripal case suspects were well-known to Russian authorities and that they were civilians. "There is nothing extraordinary or criminal about that, I assure you," the president said. The head of state also called on the suspects to come forward and tell the media about themselves.
Skripal saga
On September 5, British Prime Minister Theresa May informed the British parliament about the outcome of the investigation into the Salisbury incident, stating that two Russians, whom British intelligence services consider to be Main Intelligence Directorate agents, are suspected of the attempted murder of the Skripals. Scotland Yard published a number of photos of the two men, who, according to investigators, had been travelling around the country with Russian passports under the names of Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov.
On March 4, former Russian intelligence officer and convicted British spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were allegedly poisoned with a nerve agent, according to British investigators. Later on, London stated that this agent had been developed in Russia and blamed Moscow for being behind the incident based on this assumption. Moscow refuted all accusations, saying that neither the Soviet Union, nor Russia had any programs for developing this agent. Experts from the British chemical laboratory in Porton Down failed to identify the origin of the agent that poisoned the Skripals.