I don’t want your help, poison victim Yulia tells Moscow
POISONING victim Yulia Skripal snubbed the Kremlin yesterday, turning down Russian offers of help and insisting that no one could speak on her behalf.
Refuting claims by the Russian embassy in London that she had been kidnapped by Britain, she said she was safe and could speak freely.
The 33-year-old Russian citizen was in intensive care for more than a month after she and her father, Sergei, were attacked with Novichok nerve agent in Salisbury, Wiltshire, on March 4.
Mr Skripal, 66, a former Russian spy who has British citizenship, remains ‘seriously ill’ at Salisbury District Hospital, although he is said to be improving.
His daughter was discharged on Tuesday and moved to a secure location. But she revealed last night that she was still ‘suffering the effects’ of the poison.
In a statement released by Scotland Yard, she refused the offer of consular assistance from the Russian embassy following its claims that she and her father had been ‘abducted’ by the UK, which was blocking its offer of help.
Ms Skripal said: ‘I have access to friends and family, and I have been made aware of my specific contacts at the Russian embassy who have kindly offered me their assistance in any way they can.
‘At the moment I do not wish to avail myself of their services, but if I change my mind, I know how to contact them.
‘Most importantly, I am safe and feeling better as time goes by. But I am not yet strong enough to give a full interview to the media, as I one day hope to do.
‘Until that time, I want to stress that no one speaks for me or for my father but ourselves.’ She also urged her cousin Viktoria Skripal to refrain from making contact. Viktoria, 45, claims her cousin’s Statement: Yulia Skripal, 33 fiancé may have been involved in the attack, but Ms Skripal said Viktoria’s views did not reflect her own.
She said: ‘I was discharged from Salisbury District Hospital on the 9th April. I was treated with obvious clinical expertise and with such kindness that I have found I missed the staff immediately.
‘I have left my father in their care, and he is still seriously ill. I too am still suffering with the effects of the nerve agent used against us. I find myself in a totally different life than the ordinary one I left just over a month ago, and I am seeking to come to terms with my prospects, whilst also recovering from this attack on me.’
She said specially trained police were helping her and explaining how the attack was being investigated.
The statement came as Viktoria, who last week gave Russian media an alleged recording of a phone call with Ms Skripal, renewed attempts to get a British visa to visit the pair while protesting outside the British embassy in Moscow.
But Ms Skripal made it clear she did not want to see her cousin, adding: ‘I thank my cousin for her concern for us, but ask that she does not visit or try to contact me.’
The Russian embassy has repeatedly demanded access to the pair and yesterday claimed Yulia had been ‘held hostage by the people who destroy evidence and fail to come up with a single official account of the crime’.
The news came as a Russian TV crew was thrown out of Salisbury District Hospital yesterday after harassing nurses in a report about the treatment of the Skripals. Journalists from Ren TV mocked the attack, and cast doubt on whether Mr Skripal was treated there.