Salisbury spy attack: Sergei Skripal no longer in critical condition and 'improving rapidly'
Sergei Skripal is no longer in a critical condition, his doctors announced on Friday, as his niece was denied a visa to visit the UK amid concerns she was being used as a Kremlin “pawn”.
Mr Skripal has been in hospital since March 4 after he was exposed to a deadly Novichok nerve agent but Salisbury District Hospital said the 66-year-old was “improving rapidly”.
His recovery will raise hopes that he could give investigators vital clues about how and why he and his daughter, Yulia, were targeted.
It came as Mr Skripal’s niece, Viktoria, was denied the right to visit her relatives in hospital after the Home Office refused her visa application on the grounds that it “did not comply with the immigration rules".
But Viktoria hit back and reportedly told Sky News that "the British must have something to hide".
Meanwhile, it emerged Mr Skripal’s cat was put down and his two guinea pigs died after the former double agent’s house was cordoned off in the wake of the poisoning.
The British Government has blamed Russia for the spy attack but Moscow has denied all accusations of wrongdoing.
Relations between the two nations are increasingly strained with both engaged in a war of words and tit-for-tat retaliation, expelling each other’s diplomats.
In a major development on Friday, doctors in Salisbury announced Mr Skripal's condition had improved significantly.
Timeline Sergei Skripal How events have unfolded
Dr Christine Blanshard, medical director at the hospital, said: "He is responding well to treatment, improving rapidly and is no longer in a critical condition.”
The hospital announced last Thursday that Yulia’s condition had improved to stable.
The Foreign Office said the pair’s recovery was a “tribute to the hardworking and talented NHS staff in Salisbury” as it reiterated that “this was attempted murder using an illegal chemical weapon that we know Russia possesses”.
The Russian Embassy in the UK described the development as "good news".
Moscow has appealed to Britain to issue visas to relatives but Mr Skripal’s niece, Viktoria, was refused the right to come with a Government source telling the BBC: "It appears the Russian state is trying to use Victoria as a pawn.
"If she is being influenced or coerced by the Kremlin, she has become another victim."
Russian television aired a recording on Thursday of an alleged phone conversation between Yulia Skripal and Viktoria in which the former apparently said her father was “resting”.
The row over visas came after the fate of Mr Skripal’s pets emerged.
Mr Skripal’s black Persian cat, called Nash Van Drake, was found when investigators got into his Wiltshire house after the attack.
The cat was reportedly taken to the Porton Down military laboratory but the animal was so malnourished that the decision was taken to euthanise it in order to “alleviate its suffering”.
The two guinea pigs were found dead at the house and all three animals were reportedly incinerated.
A spokeswoman for the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down confirmed the animals were not tested to see if they were contaminated with the nerve agent.
The spokeswoman said it was an “operational decision” not to test the animals.
But Moscow questioned why the bodies of the pets were destroyed because they could have provided investigators with a “crucial piece of evidence”.
Scotland Yard said Mr Skripal and his daughter first came into contact with the nerve agent at his home with the highest concentration of the substance found on the front door.
The improving condition of Mr Skripal and his daughter is likely to prompt questions about how the pair survived exposure to the nerve agent.
Dan Kaszeta, a security and chemical defence consultant, addressed the issue and said “nerve agents only really work quickly when they are inhaled” while the effectiveness of the material could have been mitigated by “human factors” like washing hands or rainfall.
Mr Skripal and his daughter are not the first people to survive exposure to such a substance.
Heba Sawan survived a chemical weapons attack outside Damascus, Syria, in 2013 but sarin gas fumes left her blind for nearly a week and in 1995 Hiroyuki Nagaoka survived a VX nerve agent attack, carried out by a Japanese religious cult which also spread sarin in Tokyo’s subways.
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