Salisbury poisoning: Sergei Skripal's daughter Yulia 'calls cousin in Russia to say they are getting better'

Martin Coulter5 April 2018

Yulia Skripal has called her cousin in Russia to say she and her father would soon be leaving hospital, according to reports.

Ms Skripal, 33, the daughter of former Russian spy Sergei, 36, was poisoned along with her father in Salisbury in March in an incident that sparked international tensions with Russia.

Both were understood to still be seriously ill in hospital. But Russian state TV and the Interfax news service report Ms Skripal called her cousin, Viktoria, on Thursday.

In a recording played on Russian state TV, Viktoria can be heard asking someone claiming to be Yulia: "Is everything OK with you?"

Mr Skripal was found unconscious in Salisbury, where he had been living a quiet retirement

'Yulia' can be heard saying: "Everything is OK, all's well...we'll sort things out as we get to them."

Asked about Mr Skripal's condition, she responds: "Everything is normal, he is resting now...sleeping. Everyone's health is normal... nothing irreversible happened."

The cousin was also quoted by the Guardian as saying: "She [Yulia] said everything is fine and she is doing OK. That's all I'm going to say."

Investigators next to a police tent outside the Mill pub at the Maltings in Salisbury
PA

She added that a transcript of the phone call would be released by Russian news agencies "even in English".

Viktoria says she intends to fly to the UK to meet with Yulia if she is granted a tourist visa.

The revelations comes as experts at Porton Down said they were unable to identify "the precise source" of the nerve agent used to poison the pair.

Russian Spy Sergei Skripal: Salisbury Nerve Agent Incident

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Gary Aitkenhead, the chief executive of the Government's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, said the poison had been identified as a military-grade Novichok nerve agent which could probably be deployed only by a nation-state.

But he told Sky News it was not the military research facility's job to say where the substance was manufactured - despite Boris Johnson's claims that scientists had proven "beyond doubt" it was produced in Russia.

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