There is no evidence of Russia’s involvement in the poisoning of the former officer of Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) Sergei Skripal in the United Kingdom, the Russian Embassy in the United States said.
The comments come as US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the United States had full confidence in the United Kingdom’s assessment that Russia was likely responsible in the poisoning incident.
Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious last week on a bench at a shopping center in Salisbury. Both of them remain in critical condition and are being treated for suspected exposure to a chemical.
“Unfounded accusations of Russia in all the sins continue to multiply. Today, another fake news about alleged Russia’s involvement in the tragic events in the United Kingdom has been spread. When will they learn to check facts first, and make accusations only after that? To date, there is no evidence of the correctness of [claims made by] the UK, and now US authorities,” the embassy’s statement read.
Meanwhile, the Russian Embassy in the United States has agreed with US Congressman Mike Conaway’s comparison of the investigation into Russia’s alleged meddling in the US election to spy novels.
“All ‘Russia investigations’ (not only in the US) are destined to end as Mike Conaway brilliantly concluded: ‘only Tom Clancy could take this series of inadvertent contacts, meetings, whatever, and weave that into some sort of a spy thriller that could go out there,’” the embassy wrote on Twitter on Monday.
On Monday, US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee said in a statement that it found no evidence of collusion between Russia and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign as a result of their probe. Conaway, the Republican in charge of the investigation, told reporters that the committee was able to find only “some bad judgment, inappropriate meetings”, suggesting that those who believed in the allegations had read too much spy fiction written by Tom Clancy or Vince Flynn.
The Intelligence Committee is conducting one of several investigations in Congress into the 2016 US election, in addition to the probe by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has called the claims of meddling in the election groundless, while Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has stressed that no evidence has been produced to substantiate the allegations.