Russia offers to help investigate Salisbury spy murder but accuses Britain of using the incident for 'propaganda' and to 'raise tensions'

• e-mail

Russia has offered to aid Britain in its investigation into the attempted murder of poisoned spy Sergei Skripal - but only if it is given 'the necessary data and facts'.

Speaking at the African union headquarters in Addis Ababa, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov appeared to mock the UK, dismissing claims that Russia was behind the nerve agent attack as propaganda aimed at increasing international tensions.

He also suggested Russia would be open to taking part in an investigation into alleged interference in last year's US election - but only if the West was willing to share sensitive data.

Lavrov appeared to goad the UK, suggesting a major stumbling block to cooperation was the fact Russian officials had not yet seen any concrete evidence.

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov made the comments during a joint press conference at the African Union Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, are in hospital after being exposed to a mystery substance in Salisbury, which has triggered a diplomatic row and prompted crisis talks in Whitehall. 

'What we see is only news reports saying that if it is Russia, then a response is going to be given that Russia is going to remember forever,' he said.

'That is not serious. This is propaganda fair and square and it is trying to raise tensions,' he added.

'If someone wants us to engage in an investigation, be that on the poisoning of the UK subject or the rumours about alleged interference in the electoral campaign of the US, if you really need our assistance, then we will be willing to contemplate this possibility if we have the necessary data and facts.'

'But in order to have a serious conversation ... you have to use the official channels,' Lavrov said.'

Sergei Skripal (left, in 2006) and his daughter Yulia (right) continue to fight for their lives after they were 'targeted' with a deadly substance in the middle of Salisbury town centre

Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia are pictured in the Zizzi restaurant in Salisbury in 2016, the same place where they dined before they were attacked with a nerve agent 

Directly addressing the suggestion the Kremlin was behind the poisoning of Skripal, Lavrov told reporters he believed British claims of interference were simple 'propaganda'

British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Thursday her government will respond appropriately if evidence shows Moscow was behind the attack on Skripal, who served time in a Russian jail for spying for Britain before he was released in a spy swap. 

'We will do what is appropriate, we will do what is right, if it is proved to be the case that this is state-sponsored,' May told ITV News, when asked if Britain could expel the Russian ambassador.

Officers have now confirmed 21 people - including Mr Skripal, his daughter - were treated in hospital in relation to the attack, after previously claiming the number was 'fewer than ten'.

It is not clear of the 21 how many are police officers, medical staff or ordinary members of the public.

Mr Skripal would often enjoy a pint of lager in local pubs in the city (pictured here is a pub believed to be The Mill in 2016) 

Police seen putting on protective suits and gas masks in preparation to carry out further investigation work, in Salisbury

The cordon in Salisbury was extended after a Zizzi restaurant and a pub called The Mill were closed, suggesting Mr Skripal and his daughter visited multiple locations 

Mr Skripal, who passed secrets to Britain while working for Russian intelligence, and his daughter Yulia are believed to have visited Zizzi restaurant and the Mill Pub in Salisbury before they were found unconscious on a bench near The Maltings shopping centre on Sunday afternoon.

It emerged last night police were called to reports of two 'drunks acting strangely on a bench', but were met by the pair slumped in a 'catatonic state'.

Initial police investigations appeared to focus on them being poisoned while they were out, but yesterday's police activity suggests they could have become infected beforehand.

One line of inquiry is that the nerve agent used against them was developed in a Russian laboratory before being transported by a would-be assassin in a sealed container to Britain.

Who is Russian double agent Sergei Skripal? How 'Spy with the Louis Vuitton bag' narrowly avoided execution after selling secrets to MI6

Sergei Skripal (pictured) unmasked dozens of secret agents and gave information to MI6 

Sergei Skripal, a former colonel in Russian military intelligence, was considered by the Kremlin to be one of the most damaging spies of his generation.

He was responsible for unmasking dozens of secret agents threatening Western interests by operating undercover in Europe.

Col Skripal, 66, allegedly received £78,000 in exchange for taking huge risks to pass classified information to MI6.

In 2006, he was sentenced to 13 years in a Russian labour camp after being convicted of passing invaluable Russian secrets to the UK.

A senior source in Moscow said at the time: 'This man is a big hero for MI6.'

After being convicted of 'high treason in the form of espionage' by Moscow's military court, Col Skripal was stripped of his rank, medals and state awards.

He was alleged by Russia's security service, the FSB, to have begun working for the British secret services while serving in the army in the 1990s.

He was sentenced to 13 years in a Russian labour camp when he was convicted of passing secrets to Britain 

He passed information classified as state secrets and was paid for the work by MI6, the FSB claimed.

Col Skripal pleaded guilty at the trial and co-operated with investigators, reports said at the time. He admitted his activities and gave a full account of his spying, which led to a reduced sentence. 

In July 2010, he was pardoned by then Russian president Dmitry Medvedev and was one of four spies exchanged for ten Russian agents deported from the US in an historic swap involving red-headed 'femme fatale' Anna Chapman.

Mrs Chapman, then 28, was a Manhattan socialite and diplomat's daughter, who had lived and worked in London during a four-year marriage to British public schoolboy Alex Chapman.

After the swap at Vienna airport, Col Skripal was one of two spies who came to Britain and he has kept a low profile for the past eight years.

He moved into a £350,000 home in Salisbury and collapsed outside a shopping centre in the city centre 

He is understood to have been debriefed for months before being given a home and a pension.

The former spy was living at an address in Salisbury, Wiltshire, when the suspected poisoning took place in the city centre. 

Reports in Russia suggested that Mr Skripal was originally recruited by MI6 in Tallinn, Estonia, and may have lectured on the KGB tactics since moving to Britain.

He often went to his local shop to buy a particular type of Polish sausage and spent up to £40 a time on lottery scratch cards and was described as a 'polite' and 'kind' customer who often won money. 

Adam Blake who owns local firm A2B Taxis, said he 'fairly regularly' used to pick up Mr Skripal, who is fighting for his life after being exposed to a mystery substance.

Mr Blake told the Daily Mirror: 'He had a black-faced ring with an animal on it, a wolf I think, and would kiss the ring and ask if you wanted to kiss it.

'Then he would look each way, as if joking, and say, "I'm a Russian spy". He would say it to all the drivers and nobody ever believed him.

'I would often see him standing around town in doorways too, looking around suspiciously as if he was really trying to portray the spy image.'

He also joined the £10-a-year Railway Social Club in the city and neighbours said they did not know him well, although he organised a house-warming party shortly after moving in, inviting people by dropping notes through doors. 

It was also revealed how he had suffered two bereavements within just five years when his wife Lyudmila died aged 59 in 2012, before his son Alexandr passed away aged 43 in 2017. 

This video shows the evidence used to convict Skripal of spying in Russia and his high-profile arrest in Moscow in 2004 

His neighbour Blake Stephens, 24, said: 'He used to live with his wife but unfortunately she died in a car accident a while ago.' 

Col Skripal was turned by MI6 when he was posted abroad as a GRU military intelligence agent in Europe in the mid-1990s.

During his years working for MI6, the balding spy unmasked dozens of agents threatening Western interests.

Col Skripal was so well-connected that even after his retirement from his spy service in 1999 he continued to pass exceptional secrets to London by staying in touch with his former colleagues as a reservist officer. 

He was nicknamed 'the spy with the Louis Vuitton bag' after grainy pictures showed him carrying a bag at an airport en route to a meeting with his handlers.

He may finally have been snared by the FSB after passing his intelligence to MI6's infamous James Bond-style 'spy rock' – a fake stone packed with receiving equipment in a Moscow park.

Russian secret services exposed the ploy in 2006, revealing how British agents transmitted their data to the rock via a hidden hand-held device while walking past it.

Russian president Vladimir Putin (pictured yesterday) once hinted at how his country deals with spies by insisting that 'traitors always end in a bad way'

After Col Skripal's conviction, one official said: 'His activities caused a significant blow to Russia's external security.'

Chief military prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky said: 'It is impossible to measure in roubles or anything else the amount of harm caused by Skripal.'

State-run TV in Russia even compared him to the legendary Soviet double agent Oleg Penkovsky, who spied for Britain and the US during the height of the Cold War.

Penkovsky was shot by a firing squad in 1963 and is regarded as one of the most effective spies of all time.  

Advertisement

Counter-terrorism officers believe Mr Skripal could have been infected hours before he showed symptoms. The agent used is not thought to be the widely-known Sarin, VX or Novichok but a substance described by Whitehall sources as 'exotic'.

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, ex-commander of the Army's chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear regiment, said: 'This was quite clearly a very professional operation.

'These things are made in big government laboratories. It reduces in toxicity over time so if it was made in Russia two weeks ago then by the time it was administered its effectiveness would be reduced significantly.'

Zizzi, the Mill pub, Mr Skripal's house, his son and wife's graves, part of the local hospital, the ambulance station of the vehicle which took him to the hospital and an office block next to Zizzi's have all been taken over as part of the investigation. Mr Skripal is believed to have visited his wife's grave as recently as March 1.

Police still want to question a couple that were caught near the scene on CCTV, who were initially believed to be Mr Skripal and his 33-year-old daughter 

The only people still in hospital are Mr Skripal, Yulia and Sgt Bailey. While the Detective Sergeant is sitting up and speaking, there are fears former intelligence officer Mr Skripal may die.

It also emerged that Whitehall officials were drawing up a list of Russian officials they could expel from the country if it emerged Moscow was behind the assassination attempt.

Nerve agents are highly toxic chemicals that attack the nervous system and shut down bodily functions.

A cordon was widened around a pub and restaurant at the centre of the investigation. Emergency services have also taped off the park where the Skripals were found. His home in the west of the city is being investigated, as is an ambulance station in nearby Amesbury. Salisbury District's hospital declared an incident that day after the pair were found

Speaking outside Scotland Yard on Wednesday, head of counter terrorism policing, Mark Rowley revealed government experts have identified the specific nerve agent that was used, but would not be making that information public.

Establishing the substance's origins will be an urgent priority as authorities attempt to track down the person or people responsible.

'Having established that they were exposed to a nerve agent, we are now treating this as a major incident involving an attempted murder by the administration of a nerve agent,' he said.

'Sadly, in addition, a police officer who was one of the first to attend the scene and respond to the incident is now also in a serious condition in hospital.

'Wiltshire Police are, of course, providing every support to his family.

'Whilst we are now in a position to confirm that their symptoms are as a result of exposure to a nerve agent, I will not be providing further information at this stage about the exact substance which has been identified.'

Who is the daughter of Russian spy Sergei Skripal? 'Ex-Nike and Holiday Inn employee' Yulia moved to London seven years ago and was visiting her father when pair were taken ill

The critically-ill daughter of Russian double agent Sergei Skripal is a businesswoman who supported jailing Vladimir Putin on Facebook.

Yulia Skripal, 33, moved to London in 2010 - the same year her father was granted refuge in Britain - and relocated to Southampton, Hampshire.

She also worked for Nike in the Russian capital and is currently employed by PepsiCo.

According to her Facebook page she lived in Malta in 1985 and started high school in Moscow six years later. 

Yulia Skripal (pictured) moved to London in 2010 after she left her job working for Nike in Moscow 

She also lived in Malta in 1985 and started high school in the Russian capital six years later 

This letter was posted on Facebook, appearing to be a child's school work criticising Putin

Yulia was among those who responded to the post, commenting 'nice' beneath it

In 2008, she started her role as a Customer Operations Representative at Nike after she graduated from Moscow State Humanities University.

Two years later she quit the job and moved to London before relocating to the south coast when she worked for Holiday Inn in Southampton. 

It is unclear whether she lived with her father or if she had a boyfriend or partner in London. 

In 2012, her father later moved into a £350,000 four-bedroom home in Salisbury - just 20 miles west of Southampton - and the house was paid for in cash.

It was previously owned by Wiltshire Police and neighbours described her father as being a 'happy man' who drove a BMW 3 Series. 

And it has now emerged that she wrote 'nice' when a friend said he hoped the Russian President would be jailed in his anti-Putin letter. 

Yulia (left) reported the death of her father's wife to Wiltshire Police when she died in 2012

She remains in a critical condition after she collapsed in Salisbury city centre with her father 

His letter read: 'I want to put in to jail Vladimir Putin, because I think that he is the worst president in the world. He stole so much money that they can feed a small starving country.'

It is understood Yulia had moved back to Russia and was visiting her father when they were taken ill.  

Mr Skripal's housekeeper said she had been asked to clean Yulia's bedroom before her arrival. 

In 2012, her mother Liudmilla died and Yulia reported the death to Wiltshire Council.

She recorded her father's occupation as a 'retired local government planning officer'.

Advertisement

Former British ambassador to Russia Sir Andrew Wood told the Telegraph that the 'assassination attempt' was more serious given a policeman was among the injured.

However the former diplomat, who served in Moscow between 1995 and 2000, said the injuries suffered by the double agent's daughter and the officer should not take attention away from the attempt on Mr Skripal's life.

He told the paper: 'If it is true that this is, in some fashion, the Russian state, it obviously makes it even harder to believe the Russian state is worth anything or is to be trusted.

'The fact they targeted his daughter, and that a policeman is seriously ill, makes it emotionally difficult, but it does not alter the fact that this was an attempted assassination on British soil.'

He added that the diplomatic ways forward now could even involve expelling the Russian ambassador to Britain.

The paper also reported that the nerve agent may have been created in the notorious Yasenevo laboratory near Moscow, which is used by Russia's foreign intelligence service.

And a Whitehall source was quoted saying there was now widespread thinking within the UK Government that 'Putin's hands are all over this'.

Police are mounting a massive investigation to establish how the former Russian double agent and his daughter were targeted and who was responsible.