Daughter of Ex-Spy Poisoned in Britain Issues Statement for the First Time

Photo from Ukrinform

 

Yulia Skripal, the daughter of former spy, Sergei Skripal, made her first public comments on Thursday since being poisoned in Britain last month along with her father.

She said that she is getting stronger by the day.

Yulia Skripal’s health has improved rapidly in the last few weeks. On Thursday, she issued a statement through British police to thank hospital staff and the people who came to her help when “when my father and I were incapacitated.”

She has not yet given any details about what happened in her statement.

Britain’s Foreign Office said that she had been offered assistance from Russia’s embassy but so far declined any help.

“I woke up over a week ago now and am glad to say my strength is growing daily. I am grateful for the interest in me and for the many messages of goodwill that I have received. I am sure you appreciate that the entire episode is somewhat disorientating, and I hope that you’ll respect my privacy and that of my family during the period of my convalescence,” Yulia Skripal said.

British police believe the nerve agent that was used to poison the Skripals was left on the front door of their home in Salisbury, where Sergei Skripal, a former colonel in the Russian military intelligence, who betrayed dozens of Russian agents by spying for Britain’s MI6, lived after he was exchanged in a prisoner swap.

This incident has worsened the West’s relations with Moscow. Britain and more than 20 of its allies expelled Russian diplomats, and Russia expelled diplomats from around 23 countries as a response.

On March 4, 2018, Skripal and his daughter were found unconscious on a bench, at the Salisbury shopping mall in England. Investigators found that they were poisoned by the neuroparalytic substance, Novichok, which was developed in Russia.

On Wednesday, Russia lost its call for a joint inquiry to be held into the poisoning, at a meeting of the global chemical weapons watchdog, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

Moscow’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Alexander Yakovenko, said on Thursday that Russia had never made Novichok.