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Russian accused spy's link to Kremlin

September 17, 2018 15:03·
Ruslan Borishov and Alexander Petrov

Ruslan Borishov and Alexander Petrov

Prosecutors said they had sufficient evidence to charge two men, who they identified as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, with attempted murder over the attack.

The men sat for an interview with the state-funded RT network one day after Russian President Vladimir Putin said his government had tracked down the men whom British authorities accuse of using a Novichok nerve agent to try to kill former KGB agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia.

"Our friends have been suggesting for a long time that we visit this wonderful town", Petrov said, while Boshirov added that they specifically wanted to see the Cathedral's famous spire and clock.

Both men on Thursday denied that they are GRU agents or that they were in possession of the Soviet-made Novichok nerve agent.

In fact, it had an RT promo cut into the middle of the interview and then cut out really abruptly as they were speaking mid-sentence.

The interview with Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, named as suspects in the Salisbury poisoning, appeared on RT on Thursday. In Salisbury they were on March 2 and 4.

He said: "We're afraid of going out, we fear for ourselves, our lives and lives of our loved ones".

Sources claim that the Russian Main intelligence Directorate, which, according to the United Kingdom, are Bashirov and Petrov crossed the line.

The pair first travelled there by train on Saturday, March 3.

Boshirov did not react to the interviewer's request to show the pictures they took on that trip, only saying that he found Salisbury Cathedral "very beautiful".

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"They are civilians", Putin said late Wednesday, adding there was nothing criminal about them.

A British government minister, who represents Salisbury, said on Twitter that the statements were not credible.

"Your question to me seems like typical Western propaganda", Simonyan said, before hanging up.

"Normal people don't get their passports here", Sergei Kanev, an investigative reporter who participated in the research, told TV Rain.

Counter-terror police confirmed Petrov and Boshirov had been at the City Stay Hotel for two nights and later revealed they found Novichok samples in their room.

Security services believe they travelled from Moscow to the United Kingdom to smeared deadly nerve agent Novichok on a door handle at the Wiltshire home of former spy Sergei Skripal, leaving him and his daughter Yulia critically ill.

So while they were seen close to the Skripals' house they would also have had enough time to see the cathedral. He laughed off as "silly" the idea that they would have carried a women's perfume bottle.

"The only thing I can agree with them on is that Salisbury is a fantastic place, and I will be doing all I can with business leaders to promote tourism next year and beyond".

The men "have not broken any laws in Russian Federation and we don't know officially that they have broken laws anywhere else in the world", the Kremlin spokesman said.

The failed attack triggered a major diplomatic crisis between the United Kingdom and Russian Federation, with the British government alleging Moscow was responsible for the attempted murder.

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