Skripal requires live-in nurse but tries to do exercise, his niece claims

Yulia Skripal reportedly spoke to her cousin for the first time since June last year

Credit: Facebook/Yulia Skripal

Russia’s ex-spy Sergei Skripal requires a live-in nurse as he continues to recover from the nerve agent attack that nearly killed him two years ago, his niece has revealed.

The former Russian spy was poisoned in Salisbury in 2018 and has kept a low-profile since.

Now his niece Viktoria Skripal has confirmed to the Telegraph that she got a phone call from Mr Skripal’s daughter, Yulia, last month for the first time in more than a year updating her on his condition.

Mr Skripal now resides with a live-in nurse in a rented flat separately from his daughter, who is unable to visit him because of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a transcript of the phone call published by Russian daily Moskovsky Komsomolets. 

Ms Skripal reportedly told her cousin that she had fully recovered from the attack but her 69-year-old father is “in a tight spot.”

“He feels fine but I don’t see him because of the lockdown,” the ex-spy’s daughter said, adding that Mr Skripal underwent tracheotomy after the nerve agent attack and uses a tracheal tube to breathe.

“He tries to do some exercise,” she added.

Mr Skripal’s niece would not share the recording with the Telegraph but she confirmed the transcript’s accuracy.

Sergei and Yulia Skripal were found unconscious on a bench in Salisbury in March 2018 and spent weeks in a coma.

It was only a month later that Yulia made her first and only public appearance, saying that they were both recovering and asking for privacy.

Col Skripal was a senior officer in the GRU who was jailed in 2006 for selling secrets to MI6 before he moved to the UK in a spy swap.

The official probe found that the former Russian intelligence agent and his daughter were poisoned with the Soviet-era Novichok military-grade nerve agent.

Russia has denied any role in the Salisbury attack despite the overwhelming evidence pointing to two senior members of the GRU, the Russian military intelligence agency, who have been charged in absentia with conspiracy to murder.

Two years later, Alexei Navalny, the Kremlin’s most prominent critic, nearly died after he was poisoned with the same nerve agent in Siberia.