Viktoria Skripal, niece of former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal, says she does not have any information to corroborate the story that her uncle and cousin Yulia have left the UK for New Zealand, or any reason to believe media reporting on the matter.
“I don’t know anything about this. But I don’t believe it. Their participation in a witness protection programme and relocation is something that has been discussed for a long time. New Zealand, the USA and Australia were previously mentioned. But I think that they’re still in Porton Down. It’s cheaper for the British government to support them there than in New Zealand, and they don’t have so much money to support themselves there,” Viktoria Skripal said.
The relative believes the Skripals require medical supervision that can be provided to them only in Porton Down, the Wiltshire, England science park which contains some of Britain’s most advanced military biodefence facilities. “I think the information in the media about them moving is just a distraction,” she insisted.
Earlier, The Sunday Times reported that former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia had left the UK and settled down in New Zealand.
According to a government source with ‘knowledge of the risk assessment’, the family was given new identities and assistance to start new lives on the other side of the world.
The Home Office did not confirm or deny the veracity of the Times’ reporting, with a spokesperson saying “We do not comment on intelligence matters”.
Sunday’s story in The Times follows reporting by UK media earlier this year that the couple were “desperate” to get out of Britain and start a new life overseas, most likely in Australia or New Zealand.
Skripal Saga
Sergei Skripal, 68, and Yulia, 36, lived in an MI-5 safe house for nearly two years after recovering from a 2018 poisoning which sparked a major diplomatic crisis between London and Moscow.
The pair were discovered unconscious on a park bench outside a Salisbury shopping centre on 4 March 2018 and put into induced comas. British Prime Minister Theresa May almost immediately blamed Moscow for the incident, before a formal investigation even began, claiming that Russian military intelligence officers had used a military-grade nerve agent known as ‘Novichok’, or A234, against the Skripals. Russia denied the claims, and offered to cooperate in the investigation, but was blocked from doing so. The row sparked a series of tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions, and prompted the US to slap Moscow with additional sanctions.
Yulia recovered and left hospital in April 2018, with her father joining her several months later. Repeated efforts by members of the Skripal family in Russia to make contact with pair were denied, and London refused to allow Embassy staff access to the Russian nationals, citing ‘security concerns’ . The Embassy accused UK authorities of holding the family against their will, and pointed to a series of inconsistencies with the government’s version of events.
The British government never explained what motive Russia would have to target the Skripals, given that Sergei Skripal, a former military intelligence officer convicted of high treason in 2006 for passing secrets to UK intelligence, was pardoned by the Russian government and allowed to leave for Britain as part of a spy swap programme in 2010.
Other standout issues with the UK government’s version of events include the fact that officials at Porton Down never verified the country in which the poisoned used in the attack was produced. Russia destroyed the last of its stocks of Soviet-era chemical weapons in 2017, with the destruction verified by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
The BBC has produced a three-part dramatisation of the events called ‘The Salisbury Poisonings’, and plans to air the miniseries in mid-June.
