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Yulia Skripal leaves British hospital five weeks after nerve agent attack

10 April 2018 20:23 (UTC +04:00)

Yulia Skripal has left hospital more than five weeks after she and her father, a former Russian spy, were poisoned with a nerve agent in an attack that has sparked one of the biggest crises in the West’s relations with the Kremlin since the Cold War, APA reports quoting Reuters.

Yulia and Sergei Skripal, 66, a former colonel in Russian military intelligence who betrayed dozens of agents to Britain’s MI6 foreign spy service, were found unconscious on a public bench in the English cathedral city of Salisbury on March 4.

Britain accused Russia of being behind the nerve agent attack and Western governments including the United States expelled over 100 Russian diplomats. Russia has denied any involvement in the poisoning and retaliated in kind.

The Skripals were in a critical condition for weeks and doctors at one point feared, even if they survived, they might have suffered brain damage. But the Skripals’ health since then has begun to improve rapidly.

Yulia, 33, has been discharged from Salisbury District Hospital, Christine Blanshard, medical director of the hospital, told reporters on Tuesday and her father could be discharged in due course.

“We have now discharged Yulia,” Blanshard said. “This is not the end of her treatment, but marks a significant milestone.”

“Her father has also made good progress,” Blanshard said. “ “Although he is recovering more slowly than Yulia, we hope that he too will be able to leave hospital in due course.”

Yulia has been taken to a secure location, the BBC said. The Sunday Times reported that Britain was considering giving the Skripals new identities and a fresh life in the United States to protect them from further attacks.

Russia said it would consider any secret resettlement of the Skripals as an abduction of its citizens.

“The world, while having no opportunity to interact with them, will have every reason to see this as an abduction of the two Russian nationals or at least as their isolation,” a spokesman for the Russian embassy in London said.