Returning to Russia is the ‘long-term’ goal Yulia Skripal gives first interview
Yulia Skripal, who was poisoned with a nerve agent along with her father in an attack squarely blamed by Britain on Moscow, used her first public statement yesterday to say that she hopes to eventually return to Russian Federation. She has not shed any light on what happened in March in Salisbury.
"I came to the United Kingdom on the 3rd of March to visit my father, something I have done regularly in the past".
Dmitry Peskov, who speaks on behalf of the Russian president, said the Kremlin did not know whether the poisoned daughter of a Russian ex-spy made her statement under pressure or independently. After reading her statement in front of camera, she signed both documents.
In her first appearance since being discharged from hospital, Yulia said that she had flown to London on 3 March to visit her father, something she had done regularly in the past. The UK government immediately accused Russian Federation of being behind their poisoning, but it has yet to provide evidence for the claim. "I still find it hard to come to terms that both of us were attacked".
Yulia described the poisoning as an "attempted assassination", but stopped short of directly blaming the Russian state, as many Western leaders, among them Theresa May, did in the aftermath. Yulia described her medical treatment following the attack as "invasive, painful and depressing".
"The fact that a nerve agent was used to do this is shocking", Skripal, who was in a coma for 20 days following the attack, told Reuters.
"Also, I want to reiterate what I said in my earlier statement, that no one speaks for me, or for my father but ourselves". In April, she rejected offers of assistance from the Russian Embassy and said "no one speaks" for her or her father.
Russia's Channel One on Monday showed an interview with the woman it said was Sergei Skripal's mother.
Russia's Embassy in the United Kingdom welcomed the release of the interview, stating: "we are glad to have seen Yulia Skripal alive and well".
Skripal spoke in Russian and supplied a statement that she said she had written herself in both Russian and English.
A detail of a signed handwritten statement by Yulia Skripal
Skripal said that the ordeal had turned her life "upside down", both "physically and emotionally".
"In the longer term I hope to return home to my country".
London was quick to point the finger at Moscow over the incident, arguing that the alleged nerve agent used in the attack, A-230 or 'Novichok, ' was only manufactured in Russian Federation.
Skripal, recruited by British spies while in Spain, ended up in Britain after a Cold War-style spy swap that brought 10 Russian spies captured in the United States back to Moscow in exchange for those accused by Moscow of spying for the West.
The worldwide chemical weapons watchdog has backed up Britain's conclusion that the Skripals were poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent, but has not determined where it was produced.
In an extraordinary move, Mrs May expelled 23 Russian diplomats from the United Kingdom, with other countries later following suit, kicking out more than 100.
Russian Federation has asked North Atlantic Treaty Organisation to provide a full list of the member states that have conducted research on Novichok.
Britain has accused Russian Federation of being behind the attack, and named a secretive government lab in southwestern Russian Federation as the source of the poison used on the Skripals. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently noted that if Novichok had been used, the Skripals would have died nearly instantly.
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