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Yulia Skripal to decide whether to accept Russia's consular support — UK Foreign Office

Russian citizen Yulia Skripal, poisoned in the British city of Salisbury, has not yet decided whether to accept the Russian embassy’s offer of consular support, according to the UK Foreign Office

LONDON, April 11. /TASS/. Russian citizen Yulia Skripal, poisoned in the British city of Salisbury, has not yet decided whether to accept the Russian embassy’s offer of consular support, a spokesman for the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office said.

"We have previously passed on the Russian embassy's offer of consular support to Yulia," he said, as cited by the Press Association news agency. "She is free to decide on whether she wishes to pursue that. To date, we understand she has not done so," the spokesman added.

Skripal incident

According to London, former Russian military intelligence (GRU) Colonel Sergei Skripal, who had been convicted in Russia of spying for Great Britain and later swapped for Russian intelligence officers, and his daughter Yulia 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.

Chief Executive of the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) at Porton Down Gary Aitkenhead said later that British experts had been unable to identify the origin of the nerve agent used to attack Skripal and his daughter.