Putin says Russian Federation found men accused of Skripal poisoning

Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, accused of attempting to murder Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, in an image handed out by police in London on September 5, 2018.

'It was nearly certainly also approved outside the GRU at a senior level of the Russian state'.

Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures as delivers a speech during a plenary session at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Russia, Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2018.

Mr Putin said Moscow had identified the suspects and found that they were civilians.

'There is nothing special there, nothing criminal, I assure you.

Mr Putin today said the men had been discounted as members of his shadowy security network.

Viktoria Skripal, the limelight-hungry niece of Salisbury's poisoned double agent, is in Russia's headlines again, this time claiming that she knows "through her sources" that the spy suspects identified by British officials are in fact "ordinary people".

However Russian media outlets state Petrov abandoned his post as underwear sales manager when it ran into debts equivalent to £13,675.

"We hope they will turn up very soon and will tell everything themselves".

The failed attack sparked an global diplomactic crisis with Russian Federation being accused by several countries - allegations Moscow has repeatedly denied.

The Russian president's intervention risks widening the gulf between Russia and the United Kingdom over the attempted assassination, which triggered a wave of diplomatic expulsions by both sides.

Shortly after the Skripals were attacked, Putin replied to a question about the attack, "Russia does not have such chemical agents".

Britain blamed the Russian government for the attack, an allegation that Moscow has vehemently denied.

The attack left the Skripals hospitalized for weeks, and two other area residents became seriously ill months later. The Brits have leveled charges against them, while not having much in the way of expectations that they'll ever get their hands on them.

"We have repeatedly asked Russian Federation to account for what happened in Salisbury in March and they have replied with obfuscation and lies", Slack said.

The case has strong echoes of the poisoning of ex-Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko in Britain in 2006.

Ms Sturgess died in hospital on 8 July.

An Interpol Red Notice and European arrest warrant have been issued, though the Russian Constitution forbids them from being extradited.