LONDON, February 9. /TASS/. London has no plans to provide information - even to its allies - on the poisoning of former GRU Colonel Sergey Skripal and his daughter Yulia, which, according to the British authorities, took place in Salisbury in March 2018, Russian Ambassador to the UK Andrey Kelin told TASS on the eve of Diplomats’ Day marked on February 10.
"Formally, we continue to do it (send requests to the British Foreign Office - TASS) though it’s perfectly clear that the British government has no plans to provide any information even to its allies, let alone us. This leads us to the simple conclusion that there is no such information at all," the envoy pointed out.
"As for our demands, Skripal and his daughter indeed are Russian nationals and we certainly are concerned about their fate. However, it is increasingly turning into a story where someone heard something and someone said something, similar to the story of explosions in the Czech Republic’s Vrbetice, where a provocation did take place, relations did get worse, but the organizers are reluctant to confess or talk about it," Kelin pointed out.
According to London, former Russian military intelligence (GRU) Colonel Sergei Skripal, who had been convicted in Russia of spying for the United Kingdom 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, 2018. Claiming that the substance used in the episode 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 accusations. Experts from the United Kingdom’s Defense Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down were unable to identify the origin of the substance allegedly used in the attack on the Skripals.