Image copyright Yulia Skripal/Facebook Image caption Yulia Skripal was treated in Salisbury District Hospital for more than a month after being exposed to a nerve agent 
 
 Yulia Skripal, the poisoned daughter of Russian ex-spy Sergei, has been discharged from hospital. 
 
 The 33-year-old left Salisbury District Hospital on Monday and has been taken to a secure location. 
 
 The hospital said: "This is not the end of her treatment but marks a significant milestone." 
 
 Her 66-year-old father remains in hospital and is "recovering more slowly than Yulia". Doctors hope he will be discharged "in due course". 
 
 The pair were taken to hospital on 4 March after being exposed to the toxic nerve agent Novichok. 
 
 The father and daughter were found slumped on a park bench in the centre of Salisbury. 
 
 Wiltshire Police Det Sgt Nick Bailey, who attended the scene, was also treated in hospital after being exposed to the nerve agent, but has since been discharged. 
 
 A statement from Ms Skripal released through the Metropolitan Police last week said her "strength is growing daily". 
 
 Mr Skripal remains at Salisbury District Hospital but is no longer in a critical condition. 
 
 Medical director Dr Christine Blanshard said he has made "good progress", adding: "Although he's recovering more slowly than Yulia we hope he too will be able to leave hospital in due course." 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Hospital boss says release "significant milestone" for ex-spy's daughter 
 
 The government says Russia was behind the poisoning, and Prime Minister Theresa May said Moscow was "culpable" for the attack. 
 
 But the Russian government denied any involvement and has accused the British of inventing a "fake story". 
 
 According to the BBC's security correspondent Frank Gardner, Whitehall officials have compiled a list of 26 alternative explanations for the attack that have been put forward by Russia's government and media. 
 
 So far they have attached blame to Ms Skripal's mother-in-law, Theresa May, and a drone, among others. 
 
 Meanwhile, Mrs May welcomed the news of Ms Skripal's discharge from hospital and wished her the best for her recovery. 
 
 The Russian Embassy congratulated Ms Skripal but said: "We need urgent proof that what is being done to her is done on her own free will." 
 
 Responding to a Sunday Times report that the Skripals could relocate and be offered new identities, the embassy said it would view any possible resettlement as an "abduction". 
 
 On Sunday the Anglican Bishop of Salisbury will host a "service of cleansing and celebration" for the attack victims at St Thomas' Church, less than 200m from where the Skripals were found. 
 
 It will be followed by a procession near to the bench where they became ill. 
 
 Police said the pair first came into contact with the nerve agent at their home. 
 
 Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Specialist officers in protective suits have retrieved samples from multiple sites in Salisbury 
 
 The BBC's health and science correspondent James Gallagher said Novichok prevents enzymes called acetylcholinesterase from functioning normally at nerve junctions, including those required to keep the heart beating. 
 
 He said: "But over time, the nerve agent is metabolised and excreted by the body and new acetylcholinesterase is made. 
 
 "The question is whether doctors can keep patients alive long enough for that to happen." 
 
 BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera said the highest concentration was found on the Skripals' front door handle. 
 
 Traces of Novichok were also found at the Mill pub and Zizzi restaurant in Salisbury, where the Skripals spent the afternoon. 
 
 Zizzi, the Mill, the Maltings shopping centre and the Skripals' home remain cordoned off, Wiltshire Police said. 
 
 Investigators identified 131 people who had potentially been in contact with the nerve agent, and up to 500 people who visited the pub or the restaurant were told to wash their clothes and possessions. 
 
 Analysis: Will Russia get access to Yulia Skripal? 
 
 By BBC Security Correspondent Frank Gardner 
 
 Unseen by the public, Yulia Skripal was discreetly discharged from hospital in Salisbury last night, hours ahead of this morning's announcement. 
 
 She is understood to have been taken to a secure location somewhere in Britain while discussions take place over her future safety and protection. 
 
 For the UK government this could prove to be a delicate diplomatic problem. She is a Russian citizen and Moscow has been pressing for consular access. 
 
 But it is by no means clear where she will want to settle given her narrow escape from death in this failed assassination attempt on her and her father, Sergei. 
 
 Whitehall officials say reports that the Skripals are to be given a new identity in the US are premature. 
 
 Samples of the nerve agent have been tested by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down in Wiltshire, in an attempt to verify its source. 
 
 Its head said the precise source of the nerve agent had not been verified, but it was likely to have been deployed by a "state actor". 
 
 A diplomatic crisis between Russia and the West has followed, with more than 20 countries expelling Russian envoys in solidarity with the UK. 
 
 Russia's request for a new, joint investigation was voted down at the international chemical weapons watchdog at The Hague on 4 April. 
 
 Image caption Yulia and Sergei Skripal were taken to Salisbury District Hospital after being found slumped on a bench in Salisbury 
 
 Mr Skripal is a retired military intelligence officer who was convicted of passing the identities of Russian intelligence agents working undercover in Europe to the UK's Secret Intelligence Service, MI6. 
 
 He was jailed for 13 years by Russia in 2006, but was released in 2010 as part of an exchange for 10 Russian spies arrested by the FBI. 
 
 Ms Skripal regularly travelled between the UK and Moscow, and had returned from Russia the day before the pair were poisoned. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption BBC Rewind looks back at cases of high-profile Russians targeted on foreign soil 
 
 After Ms Skripal was discharged, her cousin, Viktoria Skripal, told Russian news agency Interfax that Ms Skripal planned to ask for political asylum during a press conference - although she does not know in which country. 
 
 Viktoria Skripal has been refused a UK visa to visit her relatives. 
 
 The Home Office said the application did not comply with immigration rules, but a government source told the BBC it appears Russia is "trying to use Viktoria as a pawn". 
 
 Viktoria later told the BBC she did not have enough money in her bank account to satisfy the visa requirements. 

 SALISBURY, England (Reuters) - 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. 
 
 An undated photograph shows Yulia Skripal, daughter of former Russian Spy Sergei Skripal, taken from Yulia Skripal's Facebook account in London, Britain, April 6, 2018. Yulia Skripal/Facebook via 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. 
 
 DIPLOMATIC CRISIS 
 
 British 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 has denied Britain’s charges of involvement in the first known offensive use of such a nerve agent on European soil since World War Two and suggested Britain carried out the attack itself to stoke anti-Russian hysteria. 
 
 Russia has said it does not have such nerve agents and President Vladimir Putin said it was nonsense to think that Moscow would have poisoned Skripal and his daughter. 
 
 Blanshard, a doctor with 25 years experience, said nerve agents work by attaching themselves to particular enzymes in the body that then stop the nerves from functioning. She said this had resulted in sickness and hallucinations. 
 
 Giving the first details about the medical treatment of the Skripals, she said doctors had first sought to stabilise them to ensure that they could breathe and that blood could circulate. 
 
 “We then needed to use a variety of different drugs to support the patients, until they could create more enzymes to replace those affected by the poisoning,” Blanshard said. “We also used specialised decontamination techniques to remove any residual toxins.” 
 
 She did not say when Yulia had been discharged. 
 
 Both Britain and Russia congratulated Skripal, a Russian citizen, on her recovery. 
 
 “We congratulate Yulia Skripal on her recovery,” the Russian embassy in London said, adding that it had not been granted consular access to her. 
 
 Slideshow (6 Images) 
 
 Sergei Skripal, who was recruited by Britain’s MI6, was arrested for treason in Moscow in 2004. He ended up in Britain after being swapped in 2010 for Russian spies caught in the United States. 
 
 Since emerging from the John le Carre world of high espionage and betrayal, Skripal lived modestly in Salisbury and kept out of the spotlight until he was found poisoned. He has British citizenship.
– More good news for the daughter of a poisoned former Russian spy: Yulia Skripal is out of the hospital. "This is not the end of her treatment but marks a significant milestone," says a statement from the UK's Salisbury District Hospital, per the BBC. The 33-year-old had been treated there since last month after she and her father, Sergei Skripal, were found poisoned by the nerve agent Novichok. The hospital said the elder Skripal also was improving, but not as quickly as his daughter, who will continue her recuperation at an undisclosed location. The US and Britain continue to blame Russia for the attacks, while Moscow continues to deny any involvement, notes Reuters.