All news

Russia to send new request for UK on Skripal poisoning case, ambassador says

The Russian Ambassador to London said the United Kingdom has come under pressure of other states, which are dissatisfied with London’s refusal to cooperate with Moscow on the issue

MOSCOW, November 21. /TASS/. Russia is preparing a new request for the UK Foreign Office on the Salisbury poisoning of former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, Russian Ambassador to London Alexander Yakovenko told the Rossiya-24 TV channel on Wednesday.

"We are again planning to officially request the Foreign Office’s clarifications regarding the ongoing investigation and ask the British side all these inconvenient questions," the diplomat said. "We believe that we will still manage to clarify this situation. We hope that one way or another we will get information about the ongoing investigation."

According to the ambassador, the United Kingdom has come under pressure of other states, which are dissatisfied with London’s refusal to cooperate with Moscow in investigating the incident.

"I should say that in London many ambassadors are interested why the British side is not cooperating with Russia, and they apply this legal situation to themselves. The British have come under very serious pressure, including of other countries, which do not just understand this position of London," the ambassador said.

Britain claims that former Russian military intelligence officer convicted in Russia for spying for the UK Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were affected by a nerve gas of the Novichok class in Salisbury, England, on March 4. The British government insisted 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.