YAROSLAVL, February 19. /TASS/. The mother of former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal, who vanished from the public eye following the Salisbury incident, has requested the Russian police to declare him and his daughter Yulia missing, Sergei Skripal’s niece Viktoria told TASS on Tuesday.
"Requests on behalf of Yelena Yakovlevna Skripal [Sergei Skripal’s mother] to declare Sergei Viktorovich [Skripal] and [his daughter] Yulia [Skripal] missing have been sent to police by mail," Viktoria said.
According to Viktoria, her latest phone talk with the cousin took place on July 24, 2018. During the conversation, Yulia did not say when she might return to Russia.
Viktoria Skripal lives in the Central Russian city of Yaroslavl together with Sergei Skripal’s mother, Yelena. The two women planned to apply for a UK visa, but Yelena Skripal, aged 90, later refused citing health reasons. The UK authorities have repeatedly turned down Viktoria’s request.
According to London's version, on March 4, 2018, former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal, convicted in Russia of spying for Britain, and his daughter Yulia, were exposed to a 'Novichok-class' nerve agent in Salisbury. The British government claimed that Russia was "highly likely" behind the incident. However, Moscow strongly dismissed all speculations on that score, adding that programs for developing this substance had never existed in the Soviet Union or Russia. Britain’s military chemical laboratory at Porton Down failed to pinpoint the origin of the substance that poisoned the Skripals.