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Media Reports on Skripals Life in UK After Incident Are False - Russian Embassy

LONDON (Sputnik) - The recent report by the UK The Daily Telegraph newspaper on former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia's life in the United Kingdom after the Salisbury murder attempt is yet another unsubstantiated falsification, the press officer of the Russian Embassy in the United Kingdom said on Tuesday.
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"We are dealing with yet another media leak, unofficial and unverifiable. It provides no new facts on the Salisbury incident, let alone evidence. The circumstances of the incident remain as confusing as ever", the press officer said, as quoted on the embassy's official website.

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The press officer specified that while the government source told The Daily Telegraph that the authorities knew "everything worth knowing", in fact the investigation had not revealed any official information on where the Skripals went and what they did on the day of the attack, and the identification of the suspects, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, was based on "no evidence apart from them being filmed several hundred metres away from Mr Skripal’s house'".

"As regards the reports on the Skripals living in the South of England, on their changed appearance, on Yulia having been offered a job requiring Russian language skills, on her contacts with friends, etc., careful reading reveals that these are mere suggestions by people who claim to know the manner of work of British secret services in similar situations. This is speculation not deserving a serious comment", the press officer went on to say.

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He added that the UK government continued denying consular access to the Skripals, concealing their whereabouts, and refusing to coordinate with Russia on the investigation.

"This means that the Russian nationals, Sergei and Yulia Skripal, remain forcibly held by the UK, while true circumstances of the 4 March incident have still not been established. No amount of leaks and 'expert' comments can remedy this situation", the press officer concluded.

The Daily Telegraph reported, citing unnamed sources from the UK government, that the Skripals were supposedly living in the south of the United Kingdom and undergoing medical treatment supervised by a narrow circle of experts. According to the newspaper, the UK authorities had established all the details of the Skripal case.

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The Skripals were found slumped on a bench in a park in the UK town of Salisbury on 4 March, 2018, after being exposed to a suspected nerve agent that London called a Novichok type. Later, however, they recovered and left the hospital.

The UK authorities accused Russia of being behind the murder attempt, but Moscow has repeatedly rejected the claim as baseless. London has left unanswered scores of Moscow's diplomatic notes calling for cooperation in the investigation into the matter, claiming that it was Moscow who refused to cooperate.

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