On May 23, Yulia Skripal, who allegedly suffered from a poisoning along with her father Sergei (a former Russian spy) on March 4 in the UK claimed that the use of a nerve agent in the incident “is shocking” and the treatment was “invasive, painful and depressing”, according to Reuters news agency.
According to Reuters, Yulia refused to answer any questions and made a short video statement, which she had allegedly written herself in both Russian and English.
“The fact that a nerve agent was used to do this is shocking. I don’t want to describe the details but the clinical treatment was invasive, painful and depressing,” Yulia said. “In the longer term I hope to return home to my country.”
Yulia asked to respect her privacy and the same of his father, pointing out that she does not “wish to avail” herself of services from the Russian Embassy at the moment.
The Russian Embassy in London stated that it has concerns over the text allegedly written by Yulia.
“The video shown only strengthens our concerns as to the conditions in which she is being held. Obviously, Yulia was reading a pre-written text. More than that, judging by quite a few elements, the text was a translation from English and had been initially written by a native English-speaker,” the statement reads.
Later, a spokeswoman for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) Maria Zakharova stated that Russian MFA had been trying “every single day” to get in touch with Yulia to be sure that she had done a speech on her willing.
“Every single day, both Russia’s Foreign Ministry and Russia’s Embassy to London have been making attempts to organize a contact with her [Yulia Skripal] with the main aim to make sure that she was not held by force, that she was not replaced with another person and to get first-hand information about her health and her father’s health,” Zakharova said.
She stressed that Russia had been receiving from the UK only “formal runarounds” and “non-diplomatic answers”, where a “mocking rhetoric” had been used. These UK runrounds accused Russia of complicating matters and “rolling over on London”.
“We face only one fact, allegedly proved by Russia: the access to Russian citizens has been denying for two months,” Zakharova stressed.
Zakharova pointed out that Russia wants “personally make sure” of its citizens wealth and that “they are not under forcible isolation”.
Commenting the last media reports over the May 18 discharging from the hospital of Sergei Skripal, the spokeswoman emphasized that “nothing had interfered London to give Russian representatives an access to Russian citizens.”
“We continue demanding the UK to accomplish its international legal obligations to provide a consular access to Sergei and Yulia Skripal,” Zakharova said.
On May 24, in an interview to the Russian TV channel NTV, Russian Presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stressed that Yulia Skripal’s statements must be checked whether they had been made voluntarily.
“The British side is still not adhering to the Vienna Convention, and Russia has not received consular access to Yulia Skripal yet. Moreover, we are not sure about her current state, whether she is being pressured, where she is staying, whether she made any statements and whether she did these statements voluntarily,” Peskov said.
“It is a big question whether some amount of information transmitted through someone can be reliable and trustworthy, considering that it is happening amid a massive unparalleled provocation by the British side.”
After the March 4 poisoning of Skripals, the UK claimed that the substance used in the attack had been a Novichok-class nerve agent developed in the Soviet Union. London and its allies rushed to accuse Russia of being involved in the incident. Moscow rejected the accusations, describing them as an anti-Russian provocation.