MOSCOW. Feb 3 (Interfax) - Former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, who were poisoned in the British town of Salisbury in 2018, are alive, but their location is being kept secret for their own benefit, British Ambassador to Russia Deborah Bronnert said in an interview with the Kommersant newspaper published on Monday.
Bronnert said the Skripals are alive, but she cannot disclose their location because British authorities respect people's right to make their own decisions. Both the government and the police will always abide by the wishes of private individuals, she said.
The ambassador declined to say whether the Skripals are still in the UK. She only said she was not at liberty to comment on such issues.
British authorities have no intention to change their stance on the Skripal case, Bronnert said.
Sergei and Yulia Skripal were found unconscious in Salisbury on March 4, 2018. British Prime Minister Theresa May later said that the Skripals had been exposed to the Novichok (A-234) nerve agent developed in Russia. Moscow denied the accusation, saying that Russia scrapped chemical weapons in 2017, under the supervision of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapon (OPWC).
London blamed Russian citizens Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, whom it described as Russian military intelligence agents, for the attempt on the Skripals' lives. The media said later that officers of the Russian Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) Anatoly Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin were posing as Boshirov and Petrov.