Russian Foreign Intelligence Service director Sergei Naryshkin has stated that London is destroying evidence related to the poisoning of former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.
“This is a dirty provocation by British authorities because it is clear that they constantly try to cover up traces of the crime that was committed and destroy evidence. They started doing so the moment the incident took place. Not to mention the fact that they are keeping mum on where our citizens Yulia Skripal and her father are now. Why are they hiding [them]?” Naryshkin said when asked to comment on sanctions against two Russian nationals over their alleged role in the Skripal case.
On 19 December, the US Treasury Department said that Washington had sanctioned Russian nationals Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov over their alleged involvement in the nerve agent attack against the Skripals.
Earlier, the UK-based Bellingcat project claimed that it had identified Boshirov as Russian military intelligence colonel Anatoliy Chepiga and suggested that Petrov was actually a military doctor Alexander Mishkin.
For her part, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova described the publication about the alleged identity of the suspects as “fake news” aimed at diverting public attention from what happened in Salisbury.
The Skripals were found unconscious on a bench at a Salisbury shopping centre on March 4. London accused Moscow of staging a chemical weapons attack on the Skripals while Moscow, in turn, stressed that the UK has yet to present any proof of Russian involvement in the case.
Source: Sputnik
