Novichok plot left us in a nightmare
» Yulia Skripal’s fiance vanished » Cousin fears she is on hitlist
YULIA Skripal’s car lies abandoned outside her apartment and her beloved dog Noir has spent the last six months living in kennels.
Her fiance has disappeared “off the face of the earth”, fuelling growing speculation that he was a “male honeytrap”, involved in the novichok assassination plot right from the start.
And her outspoken cousin Viktoria escaped unhurt from a horrific mystery 65mph car crash.
The Skripals could have had no idea what lay ahead when Yulia boarded a flight from Moscow’s Domodedovo airport to Heathrow in March.
The Mirror has been to her flat in the Russian capital and spoken to the friends and family of the man Vladimir Putin branded “a traitor”.
And we uncovered an extraordinary web which still, even now, leads to more questions than answers.
Distraught Viktoria, 45, invited the Mirror into her apartment and, sitting on a sofa in her lounge, she told us: “This has been an absolute horror story for all the Skripal family. We are worn out, we are tired, we are exhausted.
“Our life is a nightmare.
“I still don’t know what happened to uncle Sergei and my cousin.
“I can’t believe the Russians were behind it though – no one could be that unprofessional. The guys that the media are saying carried out the attack were idiots.
“All we want to find out is the truth.
“I want to hear my uncle’s voice again.” Viktoria and Sergei’s mum Yelena, 90, are trying to get permission to fly to the UK. Sergei, 67, and Yulia, 34, have vanished since surviving the novichok poisoning in Salisbury. But now, because she refuses to remain silent, Viktoria fears she may have been put on a hit list by the GRU – the notorious foreign intelligence arm of Russia’s military.
Last month she and her husband were driving on the main highway from their home in the regional city of Yarolsavl to Moscow when their car suddenly
careered out of control, for no apparent reason. It smashed into the central reservation and the couple clambered out – lucky to escape with their lives.
Shaken Viktoria said: “It’s certainly a possibility something suspicious happened to the car. We were pretty shaken but just pleased to be alive.
“We cannot rule out that someone has been watching us. I really don’t know if it was just an accident or not.”
Her husband Arseny said: “I was driving at around 65mph when I felt it pull to the left, then to the right – then we hit the central reservation.
“I am meticulous about checking the car before we drive down to Moscow and for some reason I didn’t do it on this occasion.”
Viktoria added: “Yulia has told me she will not call any more.
“But we just want to know she and uncle Sergei are ok – just the occasional posting on social media for example.”
But that is highly unlikely as the Skripals were spirited away to a safe house after leaving hospital. They may even have left the UK. They are very unlikely to use any media that could reveal their location. Around 185 miles away, in Moscow, Yulia’s brand new expensive Ford Kuga sits abandoned in a car park outside her apartment. It was her pride and joy but now it has been left dumped. Someone has reversed into it and there is damage to the front wing. The brown Ford, with religious icons on the dash, has been left so long a local garage has put a flyer on the windscreen offering to clean and service it.
It sits outside the two bedroom apartment where Yulia lived with her fiance Stepan Vikeev and their two dogs. Her beloved pet Noir is still in kennels pining for his owner. Yulia drove 150 miles to place Noir in those kennels – nobody knows why as there are dozens closer.
Alex Olifer, the owner of the fifth floor apartment, has now rented it out to another couple. Someone came and quietly moved all Yulia and Stepans’ possesnew sions, but the car remains. He said: “I can confirm they rented the apartment but am not prepared to say more than that.”
It is a shabby area with locals sitting outside on dark green benches smoking, bemused at the car still being there. Stepan has disappeared.
It emerged that he worked for a clandestine organisation called the Institute of Modern Security Problems.
His mother Tatiana headed the unit, thought to be “an integral part” of the FSB – which replaced the KGB secret service.
One friend said: “No one has seen him. He has vanished off the face of the earth.
“There are two schools of thought – the first was that he was a ‘honeytrap’ involved with the Russian authorities right from the very start.
“Therefore he is now being protected by the FSB in a safe house where no one will find him. Or has his mother, who is very wealthy, whisked him away for a life. There are more questions than answers on him and their relationship.
“I know his mother didn’t like him dating the daughter of Sergei Skripal. It was well known she was the daughter of a treacherous spy.
“She was openly hostile to Yulia.
“When she came to visit she even had rows with the neighbours about keeping the doors to the apartment block open.”
Tatiana now lives in the city of Padolsk.
When the Mirror tried to chat to her she refused to speak, before jumping into a limousine and heading off to work.
A neighbour said: “They had two dogs in the flat – Yulia’s Noir and a Newfoundland that belonged to Stepan.
“But you never saw them out together – they always walked their dogs separately.”
She added: “It was always strange, very strange.”