MOSCOW, March 27. /TASS/. The United Kingdom has responded to Moscow’s inquiry about the case of Sergey and Yulia Skripal for the first time since 2018, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

"We have received a response from Britain concerning the Skripal case," she pointed out at a briefing.

According to the British Foreign Office, Yulia Skripal rejected Russia’s offer for consular assistance, Zakharova said. "The response note says that Yulia Skripal allegedly took our offer for consular assistance into account but rejected it," the diplomat noted. Meanwhile, in Zakharova’s words, there was not a single word about what had become of Sergey Skripal in the British Foreign Office’s response. "I would like to ask the British: please tell us, is he still alive at all?" the diplomat said.

"In response to our demand that the UK provide information on the official outcome of its investigation into the Salisbury incident, British diplomats said that they would not comment on the issue because related legal procedures were still ongoing," Zakharova said.

"We see Britain’s forced response as an unsuccessful attempt to find excuses for its inexplicable and illegitimate years-long withholding of information on the Russian citizens, as well as another attempt to manipulate information," the diplomat emphasized. "We will continue to consistently ask for comprehensive information about the fate of the Russian nationals who disappeared from Britain without a trace six years ago, as well as for clarification on all aspects of the Salisbury incident," she added.

Skripal saga

According to London, former Russian military intelligence (GRU) Colonel Sergey Skripal, who had been convicted in Russia of spying for Great Britain and later swapped for Russian intelligence officers, and his daughter Yulia, were exposed to an alleged nerve agent in the British city of Salisbury on March 4, 2018. 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 strongly rejected all of the United Kingdom’s accusations, saying that neither the Soviet Union nor Russia ever had any program aimed at developing such a substance. 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.

On September 5, 2018, then British Prime Minister Theresa May briefed parliament on the results of an investigation, saying that two Russians, whose passports identified them as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov and who were allegedly agents of the GRU, were suspected of the attempt on the Skripals’ lives. Petrov and Boshirov later dismissed the allegations in an interview with the RT TV channel. The Metropolitan Police said later that one more person - another alleged GRU agent named Denis Sergeyev, had also been charged in the Skripal case.