LONDON, March 12./TASS/. Elizaveta Gerson, the London correspondent of Russia’s NTV television channel, has said she received a threat from an unidentified person for covering the poisoning of former Russian intelligence Colonel Sergey and his daughter Yulia.
"BBC published an article which mentioned the name of Kirill Kleimenov (presenter on Channel One’s Vermya news program) and my name. It retold my story, after which an unidentified person, I hope it was just a psycho, wrote me a letter" with threats to life, she said.
"Prior to that, there have already been nasty things posted on Twitter, but there have been no such threats," said Gerson, who has been working as NTV correspondent in the UK since 2015, prior to which, from 2013, she worked in the UK for Russia’s Ren-TV television.
Gerson said she had not turned to law enforcement agencies in connection with these threats. "I am not thinking about this, I hope this is not in earnest, it’s just some psycho tired of reading the Daily Mail," she added.
She said she feels safe at the moment, as she is now at the filming, making a report about a Soviet submarine off Rochester.
The embassy about threats
The Russian Embassy in London said earlier in the day that Russian journalists in the UK are receiving threats in the wake of an "anti-Russian campaign" in the UK media launched against the background of a probe into the poisoning of former Russian intelligence Colonel Sergey Skripal and his daughter Yulia.
"We are outraged by the anti-Russian campaign in media, which is exerting pressure on the investigation and psychological influence on the UK residents with the connivance of the authorities," the embassy said in a report circulated on Monday. "Our nationals and Russian-born Britons feel anxiety as to their future in the country. Unfortunately, threats have started coming to Russian journalists working here," the embassy went on.
TASS has failed to get an immediate commentary from the embassy as to journalists from which exactly Russian media outlets are getting threats.
Former GRU Colonel Sergey Skripal, 66, and his 33-year-old daughter Julia on March 4 suffered from the effects of an unidentified nerve agent. They were found slumped on a bench near The Maltings shopping center in Salisbury. Both are now in hospital in critical condition.
In 2004, Skripal was arrested by the federal security service FSB, charged, tried and convicted of high treason and stripped of all ranks and awards. In 2010 he was handed over to the United States under an arrangement to exchange persons arrested on spying charges. Later in the same year Skripal settled in Britain.