Fentanyl? Kremlin denies involvement in case of former Russian spy in UK


The Kremlin does not have any information about the reasons behind the incident involving former Russian military intelligence (GRU) Colonel Sergei Skripal, Vladimir Putin’s Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

“I cannot voice any response because we don’t have any information. You know how he ended up in the West, what actions led to that, I will not repeat it. Now we can see that a tragic situation has happened but nevertheless, we have information about neither the reasons for it nor the activities the man was involved in,” state-run news agency TASS quotes him.

According to Peskov, Moscow is ready for cooperation in investigating the incident.

On March 4, Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yuliya were found unconscious at a shopping mall in the English town of Salisbury. The two were taken to hospital in critical condition. The were reportedly poisoned following exposure to an unknown substance. A restaurant where they are believed to have dined before is closed, the probe into the case is in progress.

According to British media, the police suspect fentanyl, a synthetic opiate many times stronger than heroin, may have been involved, but there is no official confirmation of the fact.

The possibility of an unexplained substance being involved has drawn comparisons with the 2006 poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko who 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 Vladimir Putin, the BBC reports.

Former Colonel of the Russian General Staff’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) Sergei Skripal was arrested by the Federal Security Service (FSB) in December 2004. An investigation revealed that back in 1995, he was recruited by the British intelligence to provide information constituting state secrets. In August 2006, the Moscow District Military Court sentenced Skripal to 13 years in a maximum security correctional facility, also stripping him of his military rank and state awards.

On July 9, 2010, when Russia and the United States carried out a spy swap, Skripal was handed over to the US alongside three other convicts, while Moscow received ten Russian citizens in return.

belsat.eu, following TASS

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