"Instead of ‘We are on our way,’ it was ‘Hello, these are Boshirov and Petrov, we would like to give you an interview, but we have a number of conditions.’ Then, we talked about the conditions under which they were ready for this interview … They said that they did not want to go to a place where there are studios and there are many people," Simonyan told the Rossiya 1 TV channel’s 60 Minutes, when asked to comment on how the two men had reached out to her.
She noted that the interview had taken place in her office on Wednesday evening, since the men insisted that they did not want to talk with other people.
Simonyan clarified that the men had never given interviews and wanted to talk specifically with her.
Last week, London said it had identified Russian nationals Petrov and Boshirov as the suspects in the Salisbury attack. Moreover, UK Prime Minister Theresa May accused Russian military intelligence of orchestrating the poisoning under the order of the central authorities.
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Russian authorities, in turn, said that the photos and names of the suspects released by London did not prove Moscow's involvement in the attack. On Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin said that Russian authorities had identified the two men, who he said were civilians and had nothing to do with criminality, and urged them to show up and talk to the media.
