LONDON, April 11. /TASS/. The United Kingdom keeps refusing to provide any information about Russian citizen Yulia Skripal’s location, Russia’s Embassy to London said on Wednesday.
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"We have to state again that the British side is still refusing to give us any information about Yulia’s whereabouts, her wishes and actual condition," the embassy said in a statement. "The stance is obvious to isolate her from the public, to conceal important testimonies and to create obstacles in the way of an impartial and independent investigation."
In addition, the embassy says it received a note from the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office saying that the United Kingdom fully meets commitments concerning the embassy’s requests for consular assistance to Russian citizens Sergei and Yulia Skripal.
"We are surprised by this statement. All our numerous requests for consular access have been left without the British authorities’ substantial reaction as of yet," the document reads.
"We will be insisting on a meeting with Yulia and Sergei Skripal, whose situation seems to be more and more reminiscent of either forced detention or deprivation of freedom," the embassy said.
According to London, Sergei and Yulia Skripal 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, saying that a program aimed at developing such a substance had existed neither in the Soviet Union nor in Russia.
On April 3, Chief Executive of the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) at Porton Down Gary Aitkenhead told Sky News that British experts had been unable to identify the origin of the nerve agent used to attack Skripal and his daughter.
However, in the wake of the Salisbury incident, the UK expelled 23 Russian diplomats and announced other restrictive measures against Moscow without presenting any evidence of its involvement in the incident. In retaliation to the UK’s steps, Russia expelled 23 British diplomats, closed the British consulate general in the city of St. Petersburg, while the British Council had to shut down its operations in Russia. The United Kingdom was later requested to reduce the number of its diplomatic staff in Russia so that it would match the number of Russian diplomats in Great Britain.