Russia has said it has “no information” on what could have caused a former agent convicted of spying for Britain to collapse in Salisbury, Wiltshire.
Sergei Skripal, 66, was found slumped on a shopping centre bench in the city alongside his 33-year-old daughter Yulia Skripal, it has emerged.
The Kremlin said it was willing to co-operate in the police investigation.
UK police are trying to find out what substance caused the pair, who are critically ill, to collapse on Sunday.
Dmitry Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, told journalists that Moscow was prepared to help with the investigation.
“We see this tragic situation but we don’t have information on what could have led to this, what he was engaged in,” he said.
Image copyright Getty Images
Wiltshire Police said the pair, found at The Maltings shopping centre in Salisbury, had no visible injuries – but that officers were investigating whether a crime had been committed.
Temporary Assistant Chief Constable Craig Holden said: “They are currently being treated for suspected exposure to an unknown substance.”
He said the police’s “major incident” response was not a counter-terrorism investigation – but that multiple agencies were involved and they were keeping an “open mind”.
Meanwhile, police have closed the nearby Zizzi restaurant “as a precaution”. They say there is no known risk to the wider public.
Who is Sergei Skripal?
Image copyright Associated Press
Col Skripal, a retired Russian military intelligence officer, was jailed for 13 years by Russia in 2006.
He was convicted of passing the identities of Russian intelligence agents working undercover in Europe to the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service, MI6.
In July 2010, he was one of four prisoners released by Moscow in exchange for 10 US spies as part of a swap and was later flown to the UK.
Read more about Sergei Skripal’s background here.
Col Skripal and the woman, who police said were known to each other, are both in intensive care at Salisbury District Hospital.
A number of locations in the city centre were cordoned off and teams in full protective gear have used hoses to decontaminate the street.
Workers in respirators and hazardous material suits searched bins close to the scene where the two collapsed.
Neighbours at Col Skripal’s home in Salisbury said police arrived around 17:00 GMT on Sunday and had been there ever since.
They said he was friendly and in recent years had lost his wife.
You may also be interested in:
- Sunken US WW2 warship found under Coral Sea
- Bombarded Syrian enclave ‘beyond critical’
- A routine abduction – of a 13-year-old girl
An eyewitness to the scene where the pair were found, Freya Church, told the BBC she saw them sitting on the bench: “An older guy and a younger girl. She was sort of leant in on him, it looked like she had passed out maybe.
“He was doing some strange hand movements, looking up to the sky…
“They looked so out of it I thought even if I did step in I wasn’t sure how I could help.”
The possibility of an unexplained substance being involved has drawn comparisons with the 2006 poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko.
The Russian dissident and former intelligence officer died in London after drinking tea laced with a radioactive substance.
A public inquiry concluded that his killing had probably been carried out with the approval of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin.
A spokesman for the Russian Embassy in the UK, when asked for comment on the Salisbury incident, said: “Neither relatives nor legal representatives of the said person, nor the British authorities, have addressed the embassy in this regard.”
Mr Litvinenko’s widow, Marina Litvinenko, told BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight the latest incident felt like “deja vu” – and called for those receiving political asylum to be “completely safe”.
She said: “It just shows how we need to take it seriously, all of these people asking for security and for safety in the UK.”
Analysis
By BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera
Image copyright Reuters
The parallels are striking with the 2006 Litvinenko case. He, too, was a former Russian intelligence officer who had come to the UK and was taken ill for reasons that were initially unclear.
In that case, it took weeks to establish that the cause was deliberate poisoning, and it took close to a decade before a public inquiry pointed the finger of blame at the Russian state.
Officials are stressing that it is too early this time to speculate on what happened here or why.
The police are not even yet saying a crime has been committed, but if the similarities do firm up and Moscow is once again found to be in the frame there will be questions about what kind of response might be required – and whether enough was done in the past to deter such activity being repeated.
Do you have any information to share on this story? Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.
Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways:
- WhatsApp: +447555 173285
- Tweet: @BBC_HaveYourSay
- Send pictures/video to yourpics@bbc.co.uk
- Upload your pictures/video here
- Send an SMS or MMS to 61124
You can receive Breaking News on a smartphone or tablet via the BBC News App. You can also follow @BBCBreaking on Twitter to get the latest alerts.
Or use the form below
