Skripal niece says claims that Russia are behind novichok attack could be a HOAX

Skripal niece says claims Russia are behind the novichok attack could be a HOAX before saying she doubts he is even still alive in choreographed Russian press conference

• Viktoria Skripal questioned why it had taken Britain six months to release details
• Sergei Skripal’s niece said she even doubts whether ex Russian spy is still alive
• Britain has charged two Russians with carrying out Salisbury novichok attack
• Sergei Skripal’s niece said claims Russia was behind attack could turn out to be a hoax

Sergei Skripal’s niece has said claims that Russia were behind the novichok attack on the double agent could be a hoax – and said she doubts he is even still alive.

Viktoria Skripal, 45, questioned why it had taken Britain six months to release details of men charged with attempting to assassinate her uncle Sergei and cousin Yulia in Salisbury.   

Her remarks, in a newspaper interview, came before she appeared in a choreographed Russian press conference during which she said she did not know the men accused of carrying out the attack and questioned why she was being denied entry to Britain.

She also said she doubts that the former Russian spy is still alive because he has not communicated with the family since the poisoning in March. 

Sergei Skripal’s niece Viktoria has said claims that Russia were behind the novichok attack on the double agent could be a hoax – and questioned whether he is even still alive. Viktoria Spripal is pictured during a press conference in Russia today

heresa May told the parliament that the CPS was ready to charge two Russian citizens – Alexander Petrov (right) and Ruslan Boshirov (left) – with an attempted murder of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia

Skripal and his daughter Yulia were hospitalised for weeks in critical condition after they were exposed to novichok in the city of Salisbury on March 4. They are now recovering in a secret location for their own protection

Viktoria said she was in touch with Skripal’s daughter Yulia, but that the family had not heard from him for more than half a year.

Skripal’s 90-year-old mother needed to hear from the former agent, she said.

‘She is waiting for his phone call. She needs nothing else. She needs one phone call from her son,’ Victoria said, adding that Skripal used to call his mother every two weeks.

She also pleaded with Yulia to send the family a picture of her 67-year old father. ‘Show us that he is alive,’ Victoria said.

She confirmed direct contacts with Yulia, suggesting she was still in Britain because their phone calls came from a British number.

‘Now she uses this number all the time,’ said Victoria, though the number could not be called back. She said Yulia told her that she felt fine, was ‘recovering’ and went jogging in the morning.

Yulia planned to return to Russia once her father gets better, Victoria added.

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She added that ahead of the World Cup in Russia two months ago, Yulia had met with a friend from there who brought her buckwheat, a local staple.

‘They met but not where she lives, just in London,’ Victoria said. 

‘I think if Sergei Skripal was alive there would be no obstacles to me coming to see him,’ she said.  

In an earlier interview with a Russian newspaper, she said: ‘It was precisely six months since the poisoning on September 4. I have only one question: if the British knew about this so well, why didn’t they announce it earlier?’

Viktoria Skripal, 45, questioned why it had taken Britain six months to release details of men charged with attempting to assassinate her uncle Sergei and cousin Yulia in Salisbury

The murder attempt was approved ‘at a senior level of the Russian state,’ Theresa May (pictured) said on Wednesday

Viktoria called on British authorities to allow her to visit her family in Britain after her visa application was denied. 

‘Are they thinking I am a terrorist too and that I am going to arrive there with this novichok and try to poison them again? Why are they not letting me in?’ 

She spoke out after Theresa May told the parliament that the CPS was ready to charge two Russian citizens – Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov – with an attempted murder of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. 

She claimed that the two were GRU (Main Intelligence Directorate) officers and the operation had been ‘approved at a senior level of the Russian state.’ 

Scotland Yard has published their photographs, but in an newspaper interview, Viktoria Skripal tried to claim the images could have been photoshopped, Tass reports.

Describing herself as a ‘petty Russian citizen’, Skripal questioned why she had not been allowed to enter Britain to visit her family.

The Kremlin on Thursday rejected accusations by British officials that Putin was ultimately responsible for poisoning Sergei Skripal and said Russia is not going to investigate the suspects.

Britain’s security minister Ben Wallace called out Putin over the nerve agent attack targeting Skripal and his daughter and also warned that the U.K. would counter Russian ‘malign activity’ with both public and covert measures. 

Wallace told the BBC that Putin and his government ‘controls, funds and directs’ the military intelligence unit known as the GRU, which Britain believes used the Soviet-developed novichok nerve agent to try to kill ex-Russian spy Skripal.

Skripal and his daughter Yulia were hospitalised for weeks in critical condition after they were exposed to novichok in the city of Salisbury on March 4. They are now recovering in a secret location for their own protection.

Local woman Dawn Sturgess died and her boyfriend Charlie Rowley was sickened after they came across remnants of the poison in a discarded perfume bottle in June.

The two spies were pictured in Salisbury the day before the attack, when they carried out a reconnaissance trip

Britain on Wednesday announced charges in absentia against two alleged Russian agents, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov – names that are likely aliases. The murder attempt was approved ‘at a senior level of the Russian state,’ Theresa May said on Wednesday.

Moscow strongly denies involvement in the attack, and Russian officials said they didn’t recognise the suspects.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, called the accusations leveled against Putin and the Russian government ‘unacceptable.’

‘Neither the Russian leadership nor its representatives have anything to do with the events in Salisbury,’ he said.

Peskov also said that Russia ‘has no reasons’ to investigate the two individuals charged on Wednesday because Britain has not asked for legal assistance in the case.

Britain has said it is not going to seek the men’s extradition because Russian law does not allow for the extradition of its nationals to be tried abroad.

Russian officials have been vehemently denying the fresh accusations. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova went on national television claiming that the security camera footage of the two suspects arriving at Gatwick Airport released by the British authorities has been doctored because it shows them at the same time in the same place. A closer look, however, shows that the men were walking in different gate corridors.

Zakharova on Thursday accused Britain of ‘concealing the evidence,’ and demanded that Britain share the suspects’ fingerprints and other data.

The Skripals’ poisoning ignited a diplomatic confrontation in which hundreds of envoys were expelled by both Russia and Western nations. But there is limited appetite among Britain’s European allies for further sanctions against Moscow. 

Britain plans to press its case against Russia at the U.N. Security Council later on Thursday. 

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