Viktoria Skripal
Sergei Skripal's niece Viktoria Skripal
Victoria Skripal, a niece of Sergei Skripal, poisoned in Salisbury, said she was sure of his death.
"Well, Skripal is not among the living," she said. She came to this conclusion because the ex-spy has not informed his relatives about his state of health for a year. An earlier edition of The Sunday Times, citing an intelligence source, reported that the former GRU officer, Sergey Skripal, who had been poisoned by a nerve agent in British Salisbury, was feeling worse. - 'Skripal is dead - niece' | Russian spring
We remind our readers that the alleged poisoning of the Skripals was the excuse for the huge expulsion of Russian diplomats by England and the US, and for the US to completely close the Russian Consulate in Seattle. The Russian Federation in response closed the US Consulate in St. Petersburg and ousted 60 US diplomats.

Novorosinform adds these background notes:

Earlier, Victoria said that she had no reason to distrust Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, whom Britain suspects of poisoning the ex-officer of the GRU and his daughter Yulia.

Recall that Alexander Petrov responded to the call of the President of Russia Vladimir Putin to give his comments on this case.

During a speech at the Eastern Economic Forum, Vladimir Putin said that they had found two men in Russia who are accused by the official London in the "Skripal case."

"We, of course, looked at what kind of people they are and know who they are. We found them. There is nothing special and criminal, I assure you," the president assured.

Recall, yesterday, the British tabloid The Sun said that Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, who were accused in the Novichok incident, are already dead.


Comment: No media outlet has published anything claiming that Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov are dead, so the above is likely a translation/editing error.


Britain accused two Russians of trying to kill Skripal and his daughter on September 5.

We add the commentary of the Russian Embassy:

The publication of The Telegraph about the life of Sergey and Yulia Skripal in the UK after the incident in Salisbury is an informational stuffing. The statement was made by the spokesman for the Russian Embassy in London, noting that the information voiced by the publication does includes no evidence and is not supported by facts.

"No new facts about the circumstances of the incident in Salisbury, let alone evidence, are given. Thus, the picture of what happened remains as confusing as before," the Russian diplomatic department stressed.

Evidence of this is that there is no official information about "where Sergey and Julia Skripal were and what they did after they left home in the direction of the Porton Down laboratory with their phones supposedly turned off in the morning of March 4."

"As for the reports about the Skripals living in the south of England, changing their appearance, giving Julia Skripal work that requires mastering the Russian language, maintaining contact with friends and so on, they, if you read carefully, turn out to be nothing more than assumptions of people who understand the way the British intelligence services work in such situations. These are conjectures that do not deserve a serious comment," the embassy also said, adding that during all these months Sergey Skripal's mother could not communicate with her son or granddaughter.