Poisoned spy ‘still living in UK with medic by his side’
Yulia: My dad’s life after ‘hit’
It is difficult for him to talk due to tracheostomy... and he is under security restrictions
YULIA SKRIPAL WHAT SHE ALLEGEDLY TOLD COUSIN IN RUSSIA
NOVICHOK attack survivor Sergei Skripal is said to be living secretly in Britain with a medic by his side.
Skripal’s daughter Yulia allegedly revealed details of his hush- hush existence in a phone call she is said to have made to her cousin Viktoria.
Viktoria claims she was told that ex-Russian spy Sergei, 69, who spent weeks in hospital after being poisoned by the nerve agent, now has a pipe in his throat following a tracheostomy.
It is not known if Viktoria’s claims about the phone call are true or if Yulia and her dad are really hiding in the UK.
However Viktoria, 48, who lives in Yaroslavl, Russia, with Skripal’s 93-yearold mother Elena, 93, said Yulia told her that they talk by phone, however it is “difficult for him to talk due to a tracheostomy”. She is said to have told her cousin her father is under “security restrictions”, but is allowed to go for walks “outside the city”.
Viktoria made the claims in an interview with the paper Moskovsky Komsomolets. She says Yulia, 36 told her: “I don’t see him at all because of lockdown” – and fears he could catch Covid-19.
Of her own life Yulia reportedly added: “I am working mainly as a project manager. I had a lot of experience before with international companies, so I am getting contracts and work from home.
“I also do sports a lot, go to the gym five times a week.” And, according to Viktoria, Yulia told her that her father “has a very strong sense of guilt” that she was poisoned along with him. Both became critically ill after being poisoned when novichok was smeared on the door of Sergei’s home in Salisbury, Wilts, in March 2018.
They pulled though after long stays in hospital.
Agents from Russia’s GRU intelligence agency have been named as being behind the attack on double agent Skripal who had defected to the West. Russia however denies that it ordered the hit.
Yulia is also said to have s lammed her former boyfriend Stepan Vikeev, 33, who went to ground after the poisoning despite their marriage plans. She said he “disappeared without a trace when I was in hospital. He dumped me immediately. Now I think that he is a dead fool”.
She went on to say her father had been stung by claims that he had abandoned his mother. Yulia added that he tries to call her.
Viktoria passed a copy of her claimed November 21 call to the newspaper.
However there are doubts about the truth of her story.
A British security source said: “She would not be allowed to share location details. That would be a breach of protocols. That casts doubt on what this woman is saying.”