MOSCOW, September 13. /TASS/. The two Russians whom London claims are the alleged suspects involved in the Skripal case, Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov, have appeared on Russia’s RT news channel to deny all the charges and said that they are waiting for an apology from British authorities.
"I do hope that the affair will be finally resolved and the British side will eventually apologize for this commotion and will identify those really involved in the Skripal affair," Boshirov said.
"It was an incredible, fatal coincidence. That’s all," Petrov said.
The two men confirmed that Boshirov and Petrov were their real names
"We are the ones whose photos were shown on TV. Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov are our real names," they said in the RT interview. They complained that following London’s allegations of their supposed involvement in the Skripal affair, the mass media kept them in the public eye so they feared for their security.
"When our lives turned into nightmare, we did not know what to do and where to go. To the police, the Investigative Committee or to the British Embassy," Petrov said.
"We cannot go out, we fear for ourselves, for our lives, and for the lives or our loved ones and the people who know us," Boshirov added.
Both said they would like "at least our media to leave us in peace."
On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin, while answering questions at the plenary meeting of the fourth Eastern Economic Forum said that the identities of both men London suspected of being invovled in the Skripal case were known to Russia’s authorities and that both were civilians.
On September 5, UK Prime Minister Theresa May briefed the British parliament on the progress of the investigation into the Salisbury incident, saying that two Russians were suspected of an attempt on the lives of the Skripals and that British intelligence suspected they were GRU agents. Scotland Yard published a series of photographs of the two men who, according to the investigation, were travelling around the country with passports issued in the names of Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov.
If the British version of the affair is to be believed, on March 4 former GRU Colonel Sergei Skripal, convicted in Russia of spying for Britain, and his daughter Yulia were affected by a Novichok class nerve agent in Salisbury. London argued that Moscow was ‘highly likely’ to be involved in the incident. Russia flatly dismissed all speculations on that score, saying that no programs for developing such chemicals had ever existed in the Soviet Union or Russia.