If the Skripals came into contact with the deadly nerve agent at their doorstep, how did they have the ability to first go to a pub and a restaurant before they succumbed?

LONDON — It is an indelicate question, but why aren’t the Skripals dead?

The former Russian double agent attacked by a military-grade nerve agent a month ago is no longer in critical condition, his doctors said Friday, joining his daughter in a recovery that could lead to the pair helping investigators solve the mystery of exactly how, where and by whom they were poisoned.

Sergei Skripal, 66, is “responding well to treatment, improving rapidly and is no longer in a critical condition,” said Christine Blanshard, medical director at the Salisbury district hospital. Officials did not say whether the ex-spy had regained consciousness, as daughter Yulia Skripal did last week.

Yulia Skripal, 33, was also poisoned, but her condition had improved to stable last week. She is speaking, issuing statements and reportedly talking to relatives back home in Russia on the telephone.

“As Yulia herself says, her strength is growing daily and she can look forward to the day when she is well enough to leave the hospital,” her doctor said.

How can this be? As the Russian government has asked, in its campaign to discredit British assertions that Russia was behind the attack, why didn’t the Skripals collapse immediately if they were poisoned by a powerful nerve agent? If they came into contact with the agent at their doorstep — as British police said — how did they have the ability to first go to a pub and a restaurant before they succumbed?

The Skripals were found March 4 on a park bench in the cathedral city of Salisbury, she comatose, he awake but disoriented.

Medical experts attributed their recovery to the readily available treatments and antidotes they likely received at the hospital.

“Poisoning does not necessarily result in death,” said Michelle Carlin, a senior lecturer in forensic and analytical chemistry at Northumbria University. “If treated quickly and promptly enough, it is possible to recover from poisoning of many compounds.”

Asked if it was surprising that at least one of the Skripals regained consciousness after several weeks in a coma, Carlin said: “We don’t really know what normal is with Novichok agents, but what you’ve got to remember is their body has been poisoned with a compound, and although giving somebody an antidote will block the signal, the body still needs time to recover, and it needs to recover naturally, and obviously that takes time.”

She said it was difficult to discern why Yulia Skripal recovered faster than her father. “We don’t know if that’s because she had less administered, or it took longer to have an effect or because she’s younger or healthier — there’s too many factors to take into account,” she said.

Toxicologists and medical forensic specialists said nerve agents are most dangerous in the first few days after an attack, but given that the Skripals pulled through that, it wasn’t surprising that their condition was improving.

Malcolm Sperrin, a medical physicist, said a long-term prognosis for the Skripals remained uncertain. Referring to Yulia, he said, “She might talk and converse, but what we don’t know is if she will go back to where she was before the event, not just about cognition, but there’s other aspects that could be affected, like mobility, problems with mental state, anxiety, depression, there are so many unknowns.”

Britain said the improving health of the Skripals is “a tribute to the hardworking and talented National Health Service staff in Salisbury who have provided outstanding care.”

After the doctor’s statement Friday that the elder Skripal’s health also had improved, the Russian Embassy to the United Kingdom tweeted, “Good news!”

Russian officials have accused Britain of denying them access to Yulia Skripal. The British government said the choice not to meet with Russian officials, at least not yet, was hers. “We have conveyed to Ms. Skripal the Russian Embassy’s offer of consular assistance,” the British Foreign Office said in a statement released Thursday night. “Ms. Skripal is now able to choose if and when to take up this offer, but to date she has not done so.”

Russia has denied having anything to do with the attack, with top Russian diplomats insisting Britain either rushed or bungled the investigation — or that British agents may have poisoned the father and daughter to smear Russia.

A director of the Porton Down British military laboratory said this week that the nerve agent was from the Novichok class, a type designed and manufactured by the former Soviet Union. The lab, however, could not definitely say where the agent was manufactured.

Citing that failure, Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman, further muddied the waters, saying in a Facebook post Friday that the Skripals’ pets — two guinea pigs and a cat — had been killed by the British and then cremated to destroy evidence relating to the nerve agent used against Yulia and Sergei Skripal.

“Our sources indicate that BBC television company was aware that pets remained in the house, but for some reason, it concealed this information,” she wrote. “It would be nice to have a clarification. P.S. I’m not drawing any conclusions. This might be just a coincidence. But experiments with nerve agents in Porton Down were conducted specifically on guinea pigs.”

Britain’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said Friday that the house had been sealed after police recognized that the Skripals had been poisoned with a nerve agent. Regrettably, “two guinea pigs had sadly died” by the time someone entered the home to see about the animals, the statement said, and “a cat was also found in a distressed state and a decision was taken by a veterinary surgeon to euthanize the animal to alleviate its suffering.”

One theory shared on Russian social media is that the Skripals were the victims of a vengeance attack by the mother of Yulia’s live-in boyfriend, who reportedly has ties to Russia’s security apparatus. Yulia Skripal’s cousin Viktoria Skripal said she knew nothing about the boyfriend other than he lived with Yulia and that “he’s close to all those structures, you understand.”

The couple’s apartment in the town of Podolsk, just south of Moscow, seemed to have been vacated. Mail had piled up in the letter box and nobody answered the door. Neighbors said he had moved out to his dacha.

Sergei Skripal was a double agent who sold secrets to Britain. He was convicted and jailed in Russia but released in a swap of intelligence agents in 2010.

A version of this story was originally published on washingtonpost.com. Read it here.</s>Yulia Skripal has said her strength is “growing daily” after the nerve agent attack which left her and her father in intensive care.

Her first public comments since the March 4 attack were released shortly after Russian TV reported that she had contacted a relative in Moscow to say she and Sergei Skripal were recovering and that she would soon be discharged from hospital.

Russia has appealed for the UK to issue visas for relatives to visit the Skripals in hospital in Salisbury, where they are being treated for exposure to nerve agent Novichok.

Moscow has called a meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the incident, with foreign minister Sergey Lavrov saying the UK has “legitimate questions” to answer about what happened.

But security minister Ben Wallace said it was “beyond reasonable doubt” that Russia was to blame for the attack, as the UK sought to maintain diplomatic pressure over the incident.

Ms Skripal’s statement was released as, at a press conference at the Russian embassy in London, ambassador Alexander Yakovenko repeated Moscow’s denial of responsibility for the attack.

Russian ambassador Alexander Yakovenko denied his country had produced the Novichok nerve agent (Yui Mok/PA)Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s claim that Russia maintained a stockpile of Novichok “likely for assassination” was “untrue… not supported by any evidence … unacceptable”, he said.

Mr Yakovenko denied that Russia had ever produced the Novichok nerve agent and said there were “a lot of suspicion about Britain” in relation to a string of deaths of Russian citizens over the past decade.

In her first statement since coming out of a coma, Yulia Skripal, 33, said: “I woke up over a week ago now and am glad to say my strength is growing daily. I am grateful for the interest in me and for the many messages of goodwill that I have received.”

In the statement released by the Metropolitan Police, she thanked healthcare workers at Salisbury District Hospital as well as “the people of Salisbury that came to my aid when my father and I were incapacitated”.

And she said: “I am sure you appreciate that the entire episode is somewhat disorientating, and I hope that you’ll respect my privacy and that of my family during the period of my convalescence.”

Earlier, Russian media reported that Ms Skripal had told her cousin Viktoria that her father Sergei was “alright”, adding: “Everyone is recovering, everyone survived… No irreparable harm was done. That’s all, I will soon be discharged from the hospital.”

Mr Yakovenko said that Yulia’s sister had been waiting for two days for a visa to come to Britain to visit her in hospital.

“We believe this is a humanitarian case and we could expect that the visa would be issued as fast as possible,” he said. “Everything is in the hands of the British Government.”

On Wednesday, Russia lost a vote at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague on its demand for its experts to be involved in testing samples of the substance used in the Salisbury attack.

But Mr Yakovenko said the Western position had not won the support of most countries, with six of the 41 members backing Russia, 15 voting against – including the UK, US and several EU and Nato states – 17 abstaining, two absent and one not entitled to vote.

He said: “The majority of the world community is not supporting the Western approach.”

Mr Yakovenko said Russia would accept the findings of the OPCW investigation but wants to know who the experts are that are carrying

 out the testing.

He said: “Of course we will accept the results but these results should be confirmed by the international community. So, we want to see who were the experts.

“Last time the team was headed by the British in Syria… and that was a real problem for us.”

Mr Yakovenko said Russia had suspicions about a string of deaths of its nationals in the UK over the past decade, including businessman Nikolai Glushkov, whose body was discovered in his south London home last month.

“We have a lot of suspicions about Britain,” said the ambassador. “If we take the last 10 years, so many Russian citizens died here in the UK under very strange circumstances…

“My question is ‘Why is it happening here?’”

Russian officials speaking after Wednesday’s OPCW meeting said they presented a “common sense” case and pointed to the “lies by Tony Blair” over Iraq as they criticised the intelligence about the attack.

But Mr Wallace told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that comparisons to the flawed intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq were not valid.

“There’s no missing nerve agent that no-one can find – it was used in Salisbury, we had three people seriously ill, two obviously remain in hospital in critical condition, and there is no doubt that we have found nerve agent,” he said.

“That nerve agent has been identified to being manufactured we believe in Russia and we believe that the nerve agent, the Novichok type of nerve agent, is only capable of being produced by a nation state, and then we add that to intelligence we hold, we add that to some of the police investigation that’s going on right now, and we can say that roads lead to Russia, that we are beyond reasonable doubt of the view that the Russian state is behind this.”</s>Police in protective suits at The Maltings shopping centre following the nerve agent attack

Police in protective suits at The Maltings shopping centre following the nerve agent attack

UK POISONING VICTIM Yulia Skripal has said her “strength is growing daily”, as she released her first statement since the Salisbury nerve agent attack.

Yulia Skripal and her father, ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal, have been in hospital since last month after being found unconscious on a bench in the English town of Salisbury. The Skripals were poisoned by a nerve agent.

In a statement issued by London’s Met Police this afternoon, Yulia Skripal said: “I woke up over a week ago now and am glad to see my strength is growing daily.”

She said she is grateful for the interest in her wellbeing and for the messages of goodwill that she has received.

“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,” Skripal said.

“Further than that, I would like to thank the staff at Salisbury District Hospital for their care and professionalism,” she added.

Yulia Skripal did not comment on the current condition of her father.

The UK has blamed Russia for the poisoning, expelling diplomats in retaliation. Allies of the UK, Ireland among them, have followed suit in expelling Russian diplomats.

In response, the Kremlin has said it would be expelling an equal number of British diplomats.

It has persistently denied involvement in the poisoning.

In a press conference this afternoon, Russian Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko said that Russia wanted full cooperation with Britain on the investigation into the nerve agent attack.

When asked whether Russia will ensure that British police have access to any Russian suspects, Yakovenko said that if there are any suspects, Russia is ready to co-operate.</s>LONDON — The poisoned daughter of an ex-Russian spy said Thursday she’s recovering quickly after her ordeal, while Russia strongly protested being locked out of the probe into the nerve agent that sickened her and her father.

Britain has blamed Russia for the March 4 poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in the city of Salisbury. In response, more than two dozen Western allies including Britain, the U.S. and NATO have ordered out over 150 Russian diplomats in a show of solidarity.

Moscow has fiercely denied its involvement in the nerve agent attack and expelled an equal number of envoys. The diplomatic turmoil has hit lows unseen even at the height of the Cold War.

Early Thursday, three buses believed to be carrying expelled American diplomats departed from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow after putting their luggage on trucks. Some toted pet carriers.

Yulia Skripal said in statement released Thursday by British police that her strength is growing daily and expressed gratitude to those who came to her aid.

“I am sure you appreciate that the entire episode is somewhat disorientating, and I hope that you’ll respect my privacy and that of my family during the period of my convalescence,” the 33-year-old said.

The British hospital treating the Skripals has confirmed that Yulia’s condition has improved, while her father, 66, has remained in critical condition.

Russian state television on Thursday released a recording of what it said was a phone call between Yulia Skripal and her cousin in Russia. In it, Yulia Skripal says she and her father are both recovering and in normal health. She says her father is sleeping and his health has not been irreparably damaged.

Rossiya TV said Skripal’s niece, Viktoria, who lives in Moscow, gave the station the recording of her conversation with Yulia. The broadcaster said it can’t verify the recording’s authenticity.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, meanwhile, described the British accusations against Moscow over the nerve agent poisoning of the Skripals as a mockery of international law. Speaking at a news conference Thursday, Lavrov insisted that the poisoning case was fabricated by Britain to “demonize” Russia.

“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 U.S. and Britain but also from a number of other countries who simply had their arms twisted,” Lavrov said in Moscow. “We have never seen such an open mockery of the international law, diplomatic ethics and elementary decorum.”

Russia last week ordered 60 American diplomats to leave the country by Thursday in retaliation for the United States expelling the same number of Russians.

Lavrov noted that Russia will respond in kind to any further hostile moves, but added “we also want to establish the truth.”

He sarcastically likened the British accusations to the queen from Alice in Wonderland urging “sentence first — verdict afterward.”

On Wednesday, Russia called a meeting of the international chemical weapons watchdog to demand a joint investigation with Britain into the poisoning — the demand that London has rejected.

The Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) voted against the Russian proposal, but Moscow said the number of countries that abstained from the vote suggested many have doubts about Britain’s accusations.

“It’s unacceptable to make unfounded accusations instead of conducting a fair investigation and providing concrete facts,” Lavrov said. “Yesterday’s debate in The Hague showed that self-respecting adults don’t believe in fairy tales.”

Asked Thursday if Russia would accept the OPCW’s conclusions, Lavrov said Moscow must be part of the probe and see the evidence.

“We can’t give an advance approval to results of the investigation, in which we aren’t taking part and which is kept secret,” he said.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Wednesday that “the purpose of Russia’s ludicrous proposal at The Hague was clear — to undermine the independent, impartial work of the international chemical weapons watchdog.”

The chief of Britain’s defence research lab, the Porton Down laboratory, acknowledged Tuesday it has not been able to pinpoint the precise source of the nerve agent.

Gary Aitkenhead said scientists there identified the substance used on the Skripals as a Soviet-developed nerve agent known as Novichok. But he added “it’s not our job to say where that was actually manufactured.”
• U.K. say poisoning door handle to kill spy Sergei Skripal hints at approval at the highest level
• In wake of Skripal poisoning, the rules of the spy game are no longer clear
• British lab confirms Novichok used in attack on ex-Russian spy but can’t determine source

Lavrov said Aitkenhead’s statement indicated that Porton Down had samples of Novichok to use it as a marker to determine the type of the nerve agent used in the attack. He noted that Britain has failed to acknowledge yet that it possesses Novichok.

The British government says it relied on a combination of scientific analysis and other intelligence to conclude that the nerve agent came from Russia, but the Foreign Office on Wednesday deleted a tweet from last month that said Porton Down scientists had identified the substance as “made in Russia.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s envoy for cybersecurity, Alexander Krutskikh, mocked the contradictory statements, saying Thursday that “the latest developments around the Skripal case indicate the days of this British Cabinet are numbered.”

Moscow has called a meeting of the U.N. Security Council to press its case.

— Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow contributed to this report</s>Yulia Skripal has said her strength is "growing daily" after the nerve agent attack which left her and her father in intensive care.

Her first public comments since the March 4 attack were released shortly after Russian TV reported that she had contacted a relative in Moscow to say she and Sergei Skripal were recovering and that she would soon be discharged from hospital.

Russia has appealed for the UK to issue visas for relatives to visit the Skripals in hospital in Salisbury, where they are being treated for exposure to nerve agent Novichok.

Moscow has called a meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the incident, with foreign minister Sergey Lavrov saying the UK has "legitimate questions" to answer about what happened.

But security minister Ben Wallace said it was "beyond reasonable doubt" that Russia was to blame for the attack, as the UK sought to maintain diplomatic pressure over the incident.

Ms Skripal's statement was released as, at a press conference at the Russian embassy in London, ambassador Alexander Yakovenko repeated Moscow's denial of responsibility for the attack.

Russian ambassador Alexander Yakovenko denied his country had produced the Novichok nerve agent Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson's claim that Russia maintained a stockpile of Novichok "likely for assassination" was "untrue... not supported by any evidence ... unacceptable", he said.

Mr Yakovenko denied that Russia had ever produced the Novichok nerve agent and said there were "a lot of suspicion about Britain" in relation to a string of deaths of Russian citizens over the past decade.

In her first statement since coming out of a coma, Yulia Skripal, 33, said:

In the statement released by the Metropolitan Police, she thanked healthcare workers at Salisbury District Hospital as well as "the people of Salisbury that came to my aid when my father and I were incapacitated".

And she said: "I am sure you appreciate that the entire episode is somewhat disorientating, and I hope that you'll respect my privacy and that of my family during the period of my convalescence."

Earlier, Russian media reported that Ms Skripal had told her cousin Viktoria that her father Sergei was "alright", adding: "Everyone is recovering, everyone survived... No irreparable harm was done. That's all, I will soon be discharged from the hospital."

Mr Yakovenko said that Yulia's sister had been waiting for two days for a visa to come to Britain to visit her in hospital.

"We believe this is a humanitarian case and we could expect that the visa would be issued as fast as possible," he said. "Everything is in the hands of the British Government."</s>Yulia Skripal has said her strength is "growing daily" after the nerve agent attack which left her and her father in intensive care.

Her first public comments since the March 4 attack were released shortly after Russian TV reported that she had contacted a relative in Moscow to say she and Sergei Skripal were recovering and that she would soon be discharged from hospital.

Russia has appealed for the UK to issue visas for relatives to visit the Skripals in hospital in Salisbury, where they are being treated for exposure to nerve agent Novichok.

Moscow has called a meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the incident, with foreign minister Sergey Lavrov saying the UK has "legitimate questions" to answer about what happened.

But security minister Ben Wallace said it was "beyond reasonable doubt" that Russia was to blame for the attack, as the UK sought to maintain diplomatic pressure over the incident.

Ms Skripal's statement was released as, at a press conference at the Russian embassy in London, ambassador Alexander Yakovenko repeated Moscow's denial of responsibility for the attack.

Russian ambassador Alexander Yakovenko denied his country had produced the Novichok nerve agent Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson's claim that Russia maintained a stockpile of Novichok "likely for assassination" was "untrue... not supported by any evidence ... unacceptable", he said.

Mr Yakovenko denied that Russia had ever produced the Novichok nerve agent and said there were "a lot of suspicion about Britain" in relation to a string of deaths of Russian citizens over the past decade.

In her first statement since coming out of a coma, Yulia Skripal, 33, said:

In the statement released by the Metropolitan Police, she thanked healthcare workers at Salisbury District Hospital as well as "the people of Salisbury that came to my aid when my father and I were incapacitated".

And she said: "I am sure you appreciate that the entire episode is somewhat disorientating, and I hope that you'll respect my privacy and that of my family during the period of my convalescence."

Earlier, Russian media reported that Ms Skripal had told her cousin Viktoria that her father Sergei was "alright", adding: "Everyone is recovering, everyone survived... No irreparable harm was done. That's all, I will soon be discharged from the hospital."

Mr Yakovenko said that Yulia's sister had been waiting for two days for a visa to come to Britain to visit her in hospital.

"We believe this is a humanitarian case and we could expect that the visa would be issued as fast as possible," he said. "Everything is in the hands of the British Government."</s>The daughter of a former Russian spy left seriously ill after being poisoned in Salisbury has said "everything is fine" and claimed she will soon be discharged from hospital, according to an unverified recording.

Yulia Skripal is also claimed to have said her father Sergei was "sleeping" and "resting" and that "nobody has got anything they won’t recover from" in a telephone conversation sent to Russian State TV.

The recording was played at the same time Yulia released an official statement via the Met Police in which she said that her 'strength was growing daily'.

The phone conversation was released by Victoria Skripal, Sergei Skripal's niece, who claims she recorded a conversation with her cousin before sending it to broadcaster Russia 1.

It was revealed last week that Yulia was conscious and talking after waking from a coma she went into after being poisoned with a deadly nerve agent, alongside her father, in March.

See the full alleged phone conversation below

The unverified recording of the conversation, in which Yulia is said to have phoned her cousin, was played in Russia 1's lunchtime news show.

In the conversation, Victoria also said that she will fly to London on Monday if she is granted a visa.

It was reported last week that Ms Skripal was no longer in a critical condition and was improving rapidly.

But the 33-year-old was still in need of round the clock care at Salisbury District Hospital where she was taken after being poisoned with nerve agent Novichok.

Her father was said to still be in a coma, but when asked about his health, Yulia allegedly said: "He’s fine, now he’s resting, sleeping. Everybody’s healthy, everybody’s fine.

"Nobody has got anything they won’t recover from. I’ll be discharged soon. Everything’s ok."

Both the Skripals have been in hospital since the attack on March 4 when they were found slumped on a bench near a shopping centre in Salisbury.

Prior to the condition check last week, relatives has said they feared both only had a slim chance of survival.

However, experts at Salisbury NHS Trust said that Ms Skripal's condition had improved and her condition was downgraded from critical.

Court documents had previously said the mental capacity of the pair may be compromised to an unknown degree.

The papers showed that while Mr Skripal was unable to communicate in any way, his daughter was unable to communicate in any "meaningful way".

The Court of Protection in London also said it was not possible to say when or to what extent Sergei and Yulia Skripal may "regain capacity"

The positive update on Ms Skripal's condition came the day after police revealed she and her dad likely first came into contact with the Novichok at their front door.

The Metropolitan Police announced detectives believe the pair first came into contact with the nerve agent there.

Specialists have identified the highest concentration of Novichok - a rare and highly toxic substance - as being on the Skripals' front door, the force added.

The poisoning has led to a heightening diplomatic row between Russia and the UK and its allies.

The Kremlin will tonight drag the row over the poisoning to the UN Security Council.

The council meets later after Moscow seized on Britain deleting a tweet that wrongly claimedPorton Down had traced the nerve agent used in the attack to Russia.

Today it was reported that despite the row, British spooks know which Russian lab produced the nerve agent which poisoned Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia on March 4.

Security minister Ben Wallace told the BBC: "That nerve agent has been identified to being manufactured we believe in Russia.

"We believe that the nerve agent, the Novichok type of nerve agent, is only capable of being produced by a nation state.

"And then we add that to intelligence we hold, we add that to some of the police investigation that's going on right now.

"And we can say that roads lead to Russia, that we are beyond reasonable doubt of the view that the Russian state is behind this."

Y Hello, can you hear me?

V Ah Yulka, it’s you! (general astonishment) I can't believe it - have they given you a phone?

V Thank God Is everything Ok with you?

V If I get a visa tomorrow and coming to see you on Monday

Y Nobody will give you one!

V [some discussion about visiting] If they give me a visa, I’ll come. Just if they ask you if you want to see me, say yes.

[they talk over each other]

V Is it your telephone?

V Is your dad OK?

Y He’s fine, now he’s resting, sleeping. Everybody’s healthy, everybody’s fine. Nobody has got anything they won’t recover from. I’ll be discharged soon. Everything’s ok.</s>The hospital treating former Russian spy Sergei Skripal says he is no longer in a critical condition and his health is improving rapidly, more than a month after he was poisoned with a nerve agent in England.

Mr Skripal, 66, who as a colonel in Russian military intelligence betrayed dozens of agents to Britain's foreign spy service, was found slumped unconscious on a bench in the city of Salisbury along with his daughter Yulia on March 4.

Britain blamed Russia for the poisoning, the first known offensive use of such a nerve agent on European soil since World War II.

Moscow denied any involvement and suggested Britain had carried out the attack to stoke anti-Russian hysteria.

After weeks of no reported change in his condition, the hospital confirmed that Mr Skripal, who had been treated under heavy sedation, was now making fast progress.

Prime Minister Theresa May said the Skripals were poisoned with Novichok, a deadly group of nerve agents developed by the Soviet military in the 1970s and 1980s.

Russia said it did not have such nerve agents and President Vladimir Putin dismissed as nonsense the notion that Moscow would have poisoned Mr Skripal and his 33-year-old daughter.

The attack prompted the biggest Western expulsion of Russian diplomats since the Cold War, as allies in Europe and the United States sided with Ms May's view that Moscow was either responsible or had lost control of the nerve agent.

Moscow has hit back by expelling Western diplomats, questioning how Britain knows that Russia was responsible and offering its rival interpretations, including that it amounted to a plot by British secret services.

'The body clears the nerve agent away'

Mr Skripal's improvement has marked the latest twist in an affair that British and Russian diplomats have variously compared with Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie mysteries.

Doctors had initially feared that the Skripals might have suffered permanent brain damage.

A British judge said last month that the attack might have left them with compromised mental capacity, with an unclear effect on their long-term health.

The hospital did not say whether either Mr Sergei or his daughter would suffer long term effects.

Britain's foreign office welcomed the improvement in the Skripals but said they were "likely to have ongoing medical needs".

One toxicologist said recovery in such cases was possible.

"We know that nerve agents cause a temporary but potentially lengthy effect on the brain and nervous system," Chris Morris, a doctor at Newcastle University's Medical Toxicology Centre, said in a statement.

"What we also know however, is that with time the body clears the nerve agent away.

On Thursday, she issued a statement through British police to thank hospital staff and people who came to her help when "when my father and I were incapacitated".

Russian state television reported that Yulia had phoned her cousin in Russia and told her that she and her father were both recovering and that she expected to leave hospital soon.

Their recovery could ultimately help British counter-terrorism police piece together how they were attacked.

Meanwhile, the UK Home Office said on Friday that Viktoria Skripal, who had planned to travel to Britain to take Yulia back to Russia, had been denied a British visa.

Victoria Skripal told Sky News that the "British must have something to hide" after the decision.

Moscow asked for explanations regarding Britain's refusal to issue a visa to her, RIA news agency quoted Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying.

At a session of the executive of the global chemical weapons watchdog this week, Russia called for a joint inquiry into the poisoning of the Skripals, but lost a vote on the motion.

At a United Nation Security Council meeting on Thursday, Russia warned Britain that "you're playing with fire and you'll be sorry" over its accusations.</s>The niece of poisoner Russian spy Sergei Skripal has been denied a visa to enter Britain, the Home Office has said.

Viktoria Skripal, had planned to travel to Britain to take Sergei's daughter Yulia back to Russia, it was reported, and claimed her relatives only suffered from food poisoning.

In a statement the Home Office said: 'We have refused a visitor visa application from Viktoria Skripal on the grounds that her application did not comply with the immigration rules.'

Sergei and Yulia Skripal are being treated in hospital after being found unconscious on March 4 after an attack with nerve agent, but both are no longer in critical condition.

Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Moscow is seeking an explanation for the refusal to grant Viktoria a visa.

Russian state television on played a recording of what they said was a phone call from Yulia to her cousin, Viktoria Skripal, in Russia. In it, Yulia said she would be discharged soon.

Viktoria, who works as a chief accountant in the city of Yaroslavl, told The Associated Press on Friday that she has no doubt it was Yulia who called and that she has not heard from her since.

She said the call was recorded because she has an app on her phone to keep track of all the calls she makes for work.

'I made this recording, that was Yulia,' she said.

Viktoria also told Sky News she believes Yulia and Sergei 'ate something wrong' at a pub they visited before collapsing on a public bench in Salisbury city centre.

She said neither Yulia nor her father Sergei believed they would be attacked adding: 'Until this situation is resolved, my opinion will remain with me.

'I will stick with a simple theory that they ate something wrong at the pub, as well as the option that Yulia brought this with her on the plane from someone she knew.'

Asked who she believes was behind the attack on her relatives, Viktoria replied: 'I am not a fortuneteller.'

Dr. Christine Blanshard, the medical director at Salisbury District Hospital, said in a statement that 66-year-old Sergei Skripal 'is responding well to treatment, improving rapidly and is no longer in a critical condition.'

Yulia Skripal, 33, regained consciousness last week and is now in stable condition, she said.

Blanshard said Friday that Yulia Skripal could 'look forward to the day when she is well enough to leave the hospital,' but called any speculation about her release date 'just that - speculation.'

Scientists said the Skripals' recovery was not unprecedented. Nerve agents work by blocking an enzyme in the body that lets nerves communicate with each other and with the body's organs.

Alastair Hay, professor emeritus of Environmental Toxicology at the University of Leeds, said recovery can happen over time because 'eventually the body will restore the enzyme to full capacity, and nerve function will be restored.'

Michelle Carlin, senior lecturer in forensic and analytical chemistry at Northumbria University, said there is limited knowledge about the long-term effects of Novichok poisoning, but 'neurological damage has been reported in other historic cases.'</s>Yulia Skripal has said her strength is “growing daily” after the nerve agent attack which left her and her father in intensive care.

Her first public comments since the March 4 attack were released shortly after Russian TV reported that she had contacted a relative in Moscow to say she and Sergei Skripal were recovering and that she would soon be discharged from hospital.

Russia has appealed for the UK to issue visas for relatives to visit the Skripals in hospital in Salisbury, where they are being treated for exposure to nerve agent Novichok.

Moscow has called a meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the incident, with foreign minister Sergey Lavrov saying the UK has “legitimate questions” to answer about what happened.

But security minister Ben Wallace said it was “beyond reasonable doubt” that Russia was to blame for the attack, as the UK sought to maintain diplomatic pressure over the incident.

Ms Skripal’s statement was released as, at a press conference at the Russian embassy in London, ambassador Alexander Yakovenko repeated Moscow’s denial of responsibility for the attack.

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Russian ambassador Alexander Yakovenko denied his country had produced the Novichok nerve agent (Yui Mok/PA)Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s claim that Russia maintained a stockpile of Novichok “likely for assassination” was “untrue... not supported by any evidence ... unacceptable”, he said.

Mr Yakovenko denied that Russia had ever produced the Novichok nerve agent and said there were “a lot of suspicion about Britain” in relation to a string of deaths of Russian citizens over the past decade.

In her first statement since coming out of a coma, Yulia Skripal, 33, said: “I woke up over a week ago now and am glad to say my strength is growing daily. I am grateful for the interest in me and for the many messages of goodwill that I have received.”

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In the statement released by the Metropolitan Police, she thanked healthcare workers at Salisbury District Hospital as well as “the people of Salisbury that came to my aid when my father and I were incapacitated”.

And she said: “I am sure you appreciate that the entire episode is somewhat disorientating, and I hope that you’ll respect my privacy and that of my family during the period of my convalescence.”

Earlier, Russian media reported that Ms Skripal had told her cousin Viktoria that her father Sergei was “alright”, adding: “Everyone is recovering, everyone survived... No irreparable harm was done. That’s all, I will soon be discharged from the hospital.”

Mr Yakovenko said that Yulia’s sister had been waiting for two days for a visa to come to Britain to visit her in hospital.

“We believe this is a humanitarian case and we could expect that the visa would be issued as fast as possible,” he said. “Everything is in the hands of the British Government.”
Viktoria Skripal, a cousin of Yulia, states the poisoned pair suffered food poisoning rather than an attack with a nerve agent. Hours later she is denied a visa to visit her relatives in hospital.