Ex-spy in suburbia who joined £10-a-year railway club... while daughter hit out at Putin
THE daughter of Sergei Skripal remarked ‘nice’ when a friend said he hoped Vladimir Putin would be jailed, it was revealed last night.
Yulia, 33 – believed to have been struck down by the same unknown substance as her father – commented on a letter posted on Facebook which accused Putin of being ‘the worst president in the world’.
Yulia’s social media page shows she moved to London in 2010, the same year her father was granted refuge in Britain.
Having left Russia in an extraordinary ‘spy swap’, the colonel and his family moved into a semi-detached house on the edge of Salisbury two years later.
The £350,000 four-bedroom house was paid for in cash, having previously been owned by Wiltshire Police.
The family’s neighbours in the neat and tidy road described him as a ‘happy’ man who drove a BMW 3 Series and lived in a ‘normal house’.
It is understood that Mr Skripal, who was allegedly paid £78,000 in exchange for passing classified information to MI6, was entitled to claim a pension in Britain.
Security sources said he sometimes visited MI6 and military academies and lectured students about the GRU, Russia’s foreign military intelligence agency, as part of consultancy work.
Away from work, he had joined the £10-ayear Railway Social Club in Salisbury.
But relatives of the former spy said he believed the Russian special services could come after him at any time.
Mr Skripal often went to his local shop to buy a particular type of Polish sausage and spent up to £40 a time on lottery scratchcards. He was described as a ‘polite’ and ‘kind’ customer who often won money.
Neighbours said they did not know him well, although he organised a housewarming party shortly after moving in, inviting people by dropping notes through doors.
Mr Skripal lived on the street with his wife Lyudmila until she died in October 2012 at the age of 59.
Her death certificate said she died from disseminated endometrial carcinoma – womb cancer – which she was diagnosed with in Russia. The death was reported to Wiltshire Council by Yulia, who recorded her father’s occupation as a ‘retired local government planning officer’.
Last year Mr Skripal’s son also died. He was admitted to a hospital in St Petersburg with liver failure while visiting Russia with his girlfriend, according to reports.
Both the former spy’s children appear to have travelled freely between Russia and the UK.
In November 2013, Yulia posted the word ‘nice’ in response to her friend’s anti-Putin letter, written to practise his English and corrected with the teacher’s red ink.
It read: ‘I want to put in to jail Vladimir Putin, because I think that he is the worst president in the world. He stole so much money that they can feed a small starving country.’
It is understood Yulia had moved back to Russia and was visiting her father when they were taken ill. Mr Skripal’s housekeeper yesterday said she had been asked to clean Yulia’s bedroom before her arrival.
The woman, who asked not to be named, broke down in tears as she described discovering the former spy was critically ill.
She said: ‘He is a lovely, friendly and kind-hearted man and I was shocked when I found out it was him who was in hospital. I burst into tears. I turned up to his house on Monday to clean and the police told me I couldn’t go in but they wouldn’t say why.
‘When the news said the police didn’t know who the woman was, I called the police to tell them.
‘I then saw reports on the news that his wife had died in a car crash – that is not true, she died of cancer that she had when they moved to England. And his son died of liver problems.
‘I knew he was in the Russian army as we chatted a bit but he never said he was a spy.
‘He had friends and he loved music and he would go and talk to the neighbours sometimes but mostly kept himself to himself.’
Local shopkeeper Ebru Ozturk, 41, said Mr Skripal came into her store once a week to buy Polish sausage and scratchcards. She said he was ‘like a grandfather’. ‘He’s a very kind person, I really look forward to him coming in,’ she said. ‘Last time I saw him is a few days ago – he came in and bought a scratch card.
‘He often wins money. He’s very lucky. He was always well-dressed and neat.’
‘He bought lottery tickets a lot. He was very polite. He’s a very kind customer. He sometimes came with his daughter. He mentioned that his wife had died a couple of years ago. Whenever I saw him he was happy.
‘I think he was doing lots of business things.
‘He knows lots of different languages, he’s very educated. I think he’s been to lots of different countries.
‘We chatted about different countries and different foods he cooked. I was about to ask if he wanted any Russian food or vodka the next time he comes in.’
Yesterday Igor Sutyagin, 53, a nuclear arms expert convicted of treason, who left Russia in the same spy swap, said he shared a whisky with Skripal on the US plane that took them to RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.
He added: ‘Our ways almost immediately separated and if Skripal was really killed then I have no idea why.’