Did fog help save the Skripals?

THE Skripals’ lives were saved because of British bad weather, according to a Soviet scientist who helped develop Novichok.

He said the would-be assassin, who is believed to have smeared the nerve agent on the door of Sergei Skripal’s home, did not realise it needs to be used on a dry surface.

When the 66-year-old former Russian agent, and his daughter Yulia, 33 (pictured), were poisoned in Salisbury, Wiltshire, on March 4 the weather was overcast and damp.

Former chemist Vil Mirzayanov, who now lives in America, told a Russian radio show: ‘They received a dose, but it wasn’t lethal because the calculated concentration fell.

‘The substance was used when it was quite foggy – there were water droplets in the air. It can only be used in dry air. If you drop it into water... it dissolves.’