Skripal suspects say were in UK as tourists, deny murder attempt

LONDON - 14 September 2018: Two men accused by London of poisoning former Moscow spy Sergei Skripal denied being involved with the murder attempt in a bizarre Russian media interview on Thursday that Britain dismissed as "an insult to the public's intelligence".

Speaking with the head of the Kremlin-backed RT news network, the pair confirmed they were the men whose pictures British authorities released this month but they said they were visiting the English city of Salisbury only as tourists.

British security services had named the men as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, but said these were likely to be aliases.

In the 25-minute interview the two men said these were their real names but insisted they did not work for Russia's military intelligence agency GRU, as Britain claims.

RT said the men sounded distressed and were sweating as they spoke.

The men seemed to be around 40 years old and wore almost identical dark blue jumpers. They looked well-built and Boshirov wore what looked like a red Kabbalah bracelet.

The TV station recorded the interview on Wednesday evening, just hours after President Vladimir Putin said Russia had identified the men sought by Britain and urged them to address the media.

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

London believes that Putin personally sanctioned the attack.

- 'Insult to public's intelligence' -

Skripal's attempted assassination has drawn comparisons with the poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko with highly radioactive polonium in London in 2006.

Moscow has refused to extradite the two men Britain suspects of killing Litvinenko. One of them, Andrei Lugovoi, went on to become a Russian lawmaker.

Downing Street on Thursday called the RT interview "an insult to the public's intelligence".

"More importantly they are deeply offensive to the victims and loved ones of this horrific attack. Sadly, it's what we've come to expect," Prime Minister Theresa May's spokesman said.

Petrov and Boshirov confirmed they arrived in Britain on March 2 and said they travelled to Salisbury the next day to see the sights.

They left after no more than an hour because of poor weather and heavy snow, but returned to the city the next day -- March 4, the day of the attack.

British authorities said the suspects travelled to Salisbury twice to get ready for the attack and then carry it out.

- 'Enjoying English architecture' -

"Friends have been telling us for a long time we should visit this beautiful city," said the broad-shouldered Petrov.

"We went there to see Stonehenge, Old Sarum, but we couldn't do it because there was muddy slush everywhere," he added, referring to famous local landmarks.

Boshirov, who sported a goatee, denied they knew anything about Skripal or the location of his house.

"We walked around and enjoyed this English Gothic architecture," he said.

The men denied trying to kill Skripal and his daughter Yulia with the Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent.

British investigators say the poison was transported in a fake Nina Ricci perfume bottle and sprayed onto the handle of Skripal's front door.

"Is it not silly for decent lads to have women's perfume?" Boshirov asked.

"The customs are checking everything. We didn't have it."

They said they were entrepreneurs but did not want to divulge details that could hurt their business which they said was linked to sports nutritional supplements.

They said that they had previously travelled to Europe for business and pleasure.

- 'Sent through meat grinders' -

The pair complained their lives had become a "nightmare" and they could no longer watch the news and urged journalists to leave them alone.

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

When RT editor Margarita Simonyan asked the pair why they travelled together, implying they might be a gay couple, the men said their private lives were off limits to the media.

"This is not an interrogation," Boshirov said.

Simonyan said the men had contacted her on her cellphone.

Boshirov and Petrov said they called her because they needed protection and would like an apology from Britain.

The pair said that they had never dealt with the media before and if Putin had not urged them to speak out they would have recorded a video statement.

British Foreign Office Minister Alan Duncan said their accounts were "so unconvincing" it brought "Russia into ridicule".

"If these two suspects are prepared to answer questions on Russian television, let them come here and answer some more searching questions about what we know they did," he told AFP.

Social networks ran amok, with many deriding what the duo said as a flimsy attempt to cover their tracks.

"The Spy Who Went Home Because It Was Cold," quipped Twitter user Ben Stanley.

Others suggested that Moscow had essentially thrown its intelligence agents under the bus.

"Unlike the murderers of Litvinenko," wrote Anders Aslund, a senior fellow at the US think-tank Atlantic Council, "these two men are sent through the meat grinders".

"How can the GRU allow their obedient officers to be ridiculed like this?" he added.