MOSCOW, February 7. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has described British media allegations about a third Russian ‘agent’ involved in the Salisbury incident as yet another ungrounded fake news.
"Once again we see absolutely ungrounded bogus news, once again we see various anti-Russian allegations in the British media. We see that such news are generated on a large scale. I would like to stress it once again that once again, even after a series of high-profile publications we have neither seen nor heard any official statements of the British side," Zakharova told a briefing on Thursday.
"This time again, we have received no response that might clarify the situation," she said.
The Daily Telegraph said on February 6 citing its source that British investigators are looking at another theory of the Salisbury nerve attack incident. Thus, according to the paper, there allegedly was a third man behind the attack, a Russian military intelligence officer under the false name of Sergei Fedotov, who allegedly was supposed to fly to Moscow along with the other two suspects, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, but checked himself and his luggage off the flight before the departure. The newspaper claimed that the man had changed his plans after learning that the Skripals had survived.
If the British version of the affair is to be believed former Russian military intelligence (GRU) Colonel Sergei Skripal, 66, who had been convicted in Russia of spying for Great Britain and later swapped for Russian intelligence officers, and his daughter Yulia, 33, suffered the effects of a 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 neither the Soviet Union nor Russia ever had any program aimed at developing such an agent. On March 16, Russia’s Investigative Committee opened a criminal case over an attempted murder of Yulia Skripal.
On September 5, British Prime Minister Theresa May informed the country’s parliament about the conclusions that investigators looking into the Salisbury incident had come to, saying that two Russians, believed to be GRU agents, were suspected of conspiracy to murder the Skripals. According to May, the assassination attempt was approved at "a senior level of the Russian state." The Metropolitan Police published the suspects’ photos, saying their names were Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov.
In an interview with Russia’s RT TV channel released on September 13, Petrov and Boshirov said they had visited Great Britain for tourist purposes. According to them, they are businessmen not linked to the GRU and have nothing to do with the Skripal case.