World: Russian spy's daughter describes 'slow and extremely painful' recovery from poisoning

LONDON — Yulia Skripal, whose poisoning with a nerve agent in Britain this year set off a diplomatic clash between Moscow and the West, on Wednesday gave her first videotaped statement since the attack, describing her recovery as “slow and extremely painful” and saying that she hoped someday to return to Russia.

Skripal spoke to Reuters from an undisclosed location in London and, apart from a scar on her neck, apparently from a tracheotomy, appeared to have no visible aftereffects from the nerve agent, one of a strain of lethal poisons developed during the last years of the Soviet Union.

She was shown walking along a leafy path, wearing a flowery dress, her hair newly styled.

Skripal’s appearance seemed intended to quell speculation, promulgated by the Russian government, that Britain had fabricated the March 4 poisoning of Skripal and her father, Sergei V. Skripal, or was keeping them prisoner. Viktoria Skripal, a cousin living in Russia who has openly questioned British reports, has twice been denied visas to the United Kingdom.

Britain has blamed Moscow for the attack, an accusation the Kremlin has denied, and the dispute precipitated a series of expulsions of diplomats between the two countries and beyond.

“My life has been turned upside down as I try to come to terms with the devastating changes thrust upon me both physically and emotionally,” Skripal said, speaking in Russian. “I take one day at a time and want to help care for my dad until his full recovery. In the longer term I hope to return to my country.”

Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy, was released from a Russian prison and sent to Britain in a 2010 prisoner exchange. He has lived in Salisbury since then, occasionally traveling to brief foreign governments on Russia’s military intelligence service. He and Yulia, 33, were found unconscious on a bench in Salisbury on March 4.

Yulia Skripal expressed her deep shock upon waking up after a 20-day induced coma and learning that she had been poisoned with a nerve agent.

She also said that “at the moment” she did not desire any help from Russia’s embassy in London, which has issued a drumbeat of statements protesting Russia’s lack of access to the Skripals.

“Also, I want to reiterate what I said in my earlier statement, that no one speaks for me or for my father but ourselves,” she said.

British officials have made little comment on the Skripal case for weeks, but Russian television continues to feature the case prominently, and broadcast a special on it to coincide with the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on Saturday.

The special included an interview with Sergei Skripal’s 89-year-old mother, who begged the British authorities to grant her access to her son.

Wiping away tears, she said she had not seen him for 14 years and that she wanted “to clasp my son firmly to myself, to my heart.”

“Please, allow me to make just one phone call with my son,” she said in a statement broadcast on a Russian talk show, “Let Them Speak.” “But why don’t they allow him to phone? Why? What is the reason?”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

ELLEN BARRY © 2018 The New York Times

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