Yulia Skripal, the Russian woman who was poisoned in Britain with her former spy father, on Thursday said she regained consciousness over a week ago after the “disorientating” episode.
In her first public comments after the March 4 nerve-agent attack in Salisbury, Skripal, 33, said she was happy to say her strength “is growing daily.”
“I am grateful for the interest in me and for the many messages of goodwill that I have received,” she said in a statement issued by the Metropolitan police, the Guardian reported.
“I have many people to thank for my recovery and would especially like to mention the people of Salisbury that came to my aid when my father and I were incapacitated,” she said.
“Further than that, I would like to thank the staff at Salisbury district hospital for their care and professionalism,” she continued. “I am sure you appreciate that the entire episode is somewhat disorientating.”
Skripal went on to ask for privacy as she continues to recover from her ordeal.
Earlier Thursday, Kremlin-backed media reported that Yulia had called her cousin Viktoria Skripal in Russia, saying she and her father, Sergei Skripal, were on the mend and that she expected to leave the hospital shortly.
“Everything is fine, everything is fixable, everyone is getting better, everyone is alive,” Rossiya-1’s “60 Minute” talk show quoted her as saying in the Wednesday call. “I will soon be discharging myself (from hospital).”
Viktoria said she planned to fly to Britain on Monday if she obtains a visa on Friday.
“At the moment I have just one goal: fly there and get Yulia, at the very least Yulia,” she said, adding that Ambassador to London Alexander Yakovenko had helped her apply for a passport.
But Yulia replied: “Vika, no one is going to give you a visa.”
On Thursday, Yakovenko said he hoped Viktoria would be granted a British visa on humanitarian grounds, adding he wanted to meet Viktoria, find her housing and provide translation services.
“The British have so far not been responsive about the visa,” he said. “The timing of the visit is up to her, and how long she stays is up to her.”
Yakovenko said he was “really happy” about Yulia’s recovery – but called on the UK to grant Russian officials immediate access to her, The Guardian reported.
“We want to know what happened here,” he said. “This is not a game. For us it is not a joke, believe me. These citizens are poisoned and we want to know the truth.”
Yakovenko said he hoped Yulia “will come back to Moscow where she has a job and apartment,” according to CNN. He told reporters that he also hoped Sergei would recover.
“Russia has no problem with him, he spent several years in prison and that is that,” he said.
Meanwhile, the British Foreign Office relayed to Yulia the Russian embassy’s offer of consular assistance but said she has not taken it up, Reuters reported.
Britain has blamed Moscow for the attack with the Russian-made nerve agent Novichock, although Moscow has vehemently denied any involvement. The incident led to a spiraling diplomatic dispute between the two nations.
Russia called a UN Security Council meeting for Thursday to address the diplomatic row, which has led to a wave of tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats between Moscow and the West.
On Thursday, Russia’s top diplomat blasted Britain over its accusations.
“The so-called Skripal case has been used as a fictitious, orchestrated pretext for the unfounded massive expulsions of Russian diplomats not only from the US and Britain but also from a number of other countries who simply had their arms twisted,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a conference in Moscow.
“We have never seen such an open mockery of the international law, diplomatic ethics and elementary decorum,” he said, sarcastically likening the British accusations to the queen from “Alice in Wonderland” urging “sentence first — verdict afterward.”
Early Thursday, some 60 US diplomats who were ordered out of Russia left the American Embassy compound in Moscow on three buses.
With Post Wires
