Yulia Skripal, who was allegedly poisoned with a nerve agent, namely Novichok, in Salisbury, the UK, in early March, has had her first media appearance. 
 
 After her interview with Reuters, in which she expressed gratitude to all those who assisted and supported her as well as detailed her treatment in Salisbury hospital, social media started sharing fresh pictures. Some users, although expressing their delight about Yulia looking healthy, couldn’t help noticing a scar on her neck. They wondered whether it is the nerve agent that prompted a surprising surgery: 
 
 Yulia Skripal finally gives an interview to Reuters (in essence echoing the written statement from April):https://t.co/keGzsRyq7b 
 
 
 
 I always suspected Novichok to be a very special nerve agent: apparently prompting surgery at or below the larynx!?! 
 
 Any medical explanation? pic.twitter.com/IrgXyHJ7oJ — *Qoppa* (@Qoppa999) 23 мая 2018 г. 
 
 Note in her ‘interview’ that Yulia #Skripal doesn’t answer any questions, and that @Reuters has now deleted from the original article its earlier reference to a scar on her neck (NB possibly from her hospital treatment), but which is still visible in photohttps://t.co/5ylSaRNmSL pic.twitter.com/xcbZVlvpF4 — Charles Shoebridge (@ShoebridgeC) 23 мая 2018 г. 
 
 He further went on to ponder what the US and UK media reaction would be like if they saw a missing citizen speaking from "Russia, Syria or Iran": 
 
 The statement of Yuliya #Skripal may be entirely genuine. But if such similarly rehearsed words had been said in a similar way by a disappeared US or UK citizen in eg Russia, Syria or Iran, US UK media would very quickly claim they’d been said under duresspic.twitter.com/ekmCNwbCMn — Charles Shoebridge (@ShoebridgeC) 23 мая 2018 г. 
 
 Another Twitter pointed to Yulia looking relaxed: 
 
 Some retold what the British authorities earlier said about the Skripals being located to a safer place, adding the statement appeared to be way too exaggerated given what Yulia said in an interview today: 
 
 Tory Government: Skripal’s won’t be safe, will need to relocate to a new country with new identities. 
 
 Yulia #Skripal on first interview says wants to return home to Russia after she finishes looking after her dad. 
 
 You decide if the Tories had totally over hyped this… pic.twitter.com/RzHF9GOskh — Devutopia (@D_Raval) 23 мая 2018 г. 
 
 One user rushed to call to stop placing Yulia Skripal's figure in the center of a political competition: 
 
 I’d like people to treat Yulia Skripal like a human being that is in the middle of something dreadful, rather than a political football to score talking points with. — Michael Topic (@tropicalontour) 23 мая 2018 г. 
 
 Some, meanwhile, have transferred the debate into a satirical domain: 
 
 Yulia Skripal has said she wants to return home to Russia, which according to Theresa May, is the country that tried to assassinate her, and her father, using one of the deadliest military grade poisons known to mankind. 
 
 
 
 If only we could all be as forgiving as Yukia. pic.twitter.com/cwtvMau9cy — Rachael Swindon (@Rachael_Swindon) 23 мая 2018 г. 
 
 Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were attacked supposedly with a toxic substance and found unconscious on a bench in Salisbury on March 4. London claims that Russia is behind the poisoning of Skripals with A234 substance, while Moscow vehemently denies it, with the Kremlin billing Britain's hostile move a provocation that was orchestrated in order to spark a Russophobic sentiment around the world. 
 
 Britain, which expelled 23 Russian diplomats from the country following the attack, has provided no tangible proof whatsoever to justify its accusations. 
 
 
 
 

 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption "My life has been turned upside down" - Yulia Skripal's video statement in full 
 
 The daughter of an ex-Russian spy poisoned in Salisbury has said she is "lucky to be alive" after the attack. 
 
 Yulia Skripal and her father, Sergei, were exposed to nerve agent Novichok in the city on 4 March. 
 
 In her first filmed public statement since the attack, Ms Skripal told Reuters that her life had been "turned upside down" but she hoped to return to Russia in the future. 
 
 Her father was discharged from hospital earlier this month. 
 
 Ms Skripal spent six weeks in Salisbury District Hospital, and was discharged after doctors there said she had responded "exceptionally well" to treatment. 
 
 Speaking to the news agency, she said she was continuing "to progress with treatment" and her focus remains on her recovery. 
 
 "After 20 days in a coma, I woke to the news that we may have been poisoned. I still find it difficult to come to terms with the fact that both of us were attacked in a such a way." 
 
 Ms Skripal thanked the Russian embassy for its offer of assistance. But she said she and her father were "not ready to take it". 
 
 She also paid tribute to those who had treated her since the attack, describing them as "wonderful and kind". 
 
 "We are so lucky to have both survived this attempted assassination. 
 
 "I don't want to describe the details, but the clinical treatment was invasive, painful and depressing. 
 
 "Our recovery has been slow and extremely painful." 
 
 In the video, a scar on Ms Skripal's neck can be seen which is understood to be from a tracheotomy - a procedure to help patients breathe. 
 
 Ms Skripal added she would be taking "one day at a time" and that she hoped to care for her father until he is fully recovered. 
 
 Image copyright Reuters 
 
 Read the letter in full 
 
 She has asked for her and Mr Skripal's privacy to be respected. 
 
 Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Russia had continuously tried to contact Ms Skripal "to get information direct from the source". 
 
 "We want Yulia Skripal to know that there was not a single day when the Russian foreign ministry and the Russian embassy in London did not try to arrange contact with her, with the chief aim of checking that she is not being held by force, that no one else is being passed off as her," she added. 
 
 Before the statement, the pair had been moved to secure locations but it is not clear if they were together. 
 
 Foul play concerns 
 
 Ms Skripal, 33, and 66-year-old Mr Skripal were found slumped on a bench following the poisoning. 
 
 Wiltshire Police Det Sgt Nick Bailey, who was one of the first on the scene, was also admitted to hospital for treatment and was the first to be discharged. 
 
 The UK responded to the attack, which it blames Russia for, by announcing a number of sanctions including the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats. 
 
 Russia denies any involvement and in turn ordered British diplomats to leave Moscow. 
 
 Its embassy in the UK has expressed concerns over the legitimacy of the statement, believing it was written "by a native English speaker". 
 
 In a statement, it said: "The UK is obliged to give us the opportunity to speak to Yulia directly in order to make sure that she is not held against her own will and is not speaking under pressure." 
 
 Meanwhile, work to decontaminate the Wiltshire city is still under way with the highest concentration of the Novichok found at the Skripals' front door. 

 LONDON (Reuters) - Yulia Skripal survived an assassination attempt that UK authorities blame on Russia. But the daughter of one of Russia’s most famous spies says she wants to return to her country “in the longer term”, despite the poisoning. 
 
 “The fact that a nerve agent was used to do this is shocking,” Skripal told Reuters in an exclusive statement. “My life has been turned upside down.” 
 
 Yulia and her father Sergei Skripal, 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 British city of Salisbury on March 4. 
 
 Yulia Skripal, 33, was in a coma for 20 days. 
 
 “I woke to the news that we had both been poisoned,” Skripal said in her first media appearance since the poisoning. She contacted Reuters through the British police. 
 
 Skripal was speaking from a secret location in London as she is under the protection of the British state. She was discharged from Salisbury District Hospital about five weeks after the poisoning and has not been seen by the media until now. 
 
 "We are so lucky to have both survived this attempted assassination. Our recovery has been slow and extremely painful," she said in her written English statement. 
 
 “As I try to come to terms with the devastating changes thrust upon me both physically and emotionally, I take one day at a time and want to help care for my Dad till his full recovery. In the longer term I hope to return home to my country.” 
 
 Skripal spoke in Russian and supplied a statement that she said she had written herself in both Russian and English. She signed both documents after making her statement. 
 
 She declined to answer questions after speaking to camera. 
 
 Read Skripal's handwritten statements: https://reut.rs/2KPpMTy 
 
 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. May blames Russia for the poisoning. 
 
 It was the first known use of a military-grade nerve agent on European soil since World War Two. Allies in Europe and the United States sided with May’s view and ordered the biggest expulsion of Russian diplomats since the height of the Cold War. 
 
 Russia retaliated by expelling Western diplomats. Moscow has repeatedly denied any involvement and accused the British intelligence agencies of staging the attack to stoke anti-Russian hysteria. 
 
 Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he thought Yulia Skripal was speaking under duress. 
 
 “We have not seen her or heard from her,” he said when asked to comment on the story. 
 
 After Reuters published a video of Yulia Skripal’s statement, the Russian Embassy in London said it was glad Skripal was “alive and well” but that Russia still had concerns, and believed the text had been written by a native English speaker before being translated into Russian. 
 
 “With all respect for Yulia’s privacy and security, this video does not discharge the UK authorities from their obligations under Consular Conventions,” the Embassy said in a statement. 
 
 “The UK is obliged to give us the opportunity to speak to Yulia directly in order to make sure that she is not held against her own will and is not speaking under pressure. So far, we have every reason to suspect the opposite.” 
 
 Yulia Skripal, who was poisoned in Salisbury along with her father, Russian spy Sergei Skripal, speaks to Reuters in London, Britain, May 23, 2018. REUTERS/Dylan Martinez 
 
 “NO ONE SPEAKS FOR ME” 
 
 Russia’s ambassador in London, Alexander Yakovenko, has repeatedly demanded to see Yulia, who was a Russian citizen when she was poisoned. 
 
 “I’m grateful for the offers of assistance from the Russian Embassy. But at the moment I do not wish to avail myself of their services,” Skripal, who wore a light blue summer dress and bore a scar on her throat, said. 
 
 “Also, I want to reiterate what I said in my earlier statement, that no one speaks for me, or for my father but ourselves.” 
 
 Mystery surrounds the attack. The motive is unclear, as is the logic of using such an exotic nerve agent which has overt links to Russia’s Soviet past. 
 
 Russian officials question why Russia would want to attack an aging turncoat who was pardoned and swapped in a Kremlin-approved 2010 spy swap. 
 
 President Vladimir Putin, himself a former KGB spy, said earlier this month that Skripal would have been dead if he was attacked with a weapons grade agent. 
 
 “I don’t want to describe the details but the clinical treatment was invasive, painful and depressing,” she said in Russian. 
 
 Yulia’s father was discharged from hospital on May 18. At one point doctors feared both patients could have suffered brain damage. He is no longer in a critical condition, Salisbury hospital said. 
 
 NERVE AGENT ATTACK 
 
 Born as a citizen of a superpower, Yulia grew up as the Soviet Union crumbled and then in the chaos that followed its 1991 collapse. 
 
 Her Facebook page says she started studying at Moscow’s School No. 63 in 1991 before gaining admission to Moscow State Humanities University in 2001, a year after Putin was first elected as Russian president. 
 
 In December 2004, her father was arrested by Federal Security Service agents on suspicion of treason: passing secrets to Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency. 
 
 Slideshow (9 Images) 
 
 Skripal, recruited by British spies while in Spain, ended up in Britain after a Cold War-style spy swap that brought 10 Russian spies captured in the United States back to Moscow in exchange for those accused by Moscow of spying for the West. 
 
 Yulia arrived in Britain from Russia at London’s Heathrow Airport at about 1440 GMT on March 3 on one of her regular visits to her father. The pair were found unconscious a day later. 
 
 “I am grateful to all of the wonderful, kind staff at Salisbury hospital, a place I have become all too familiar with. I also think fondly of those who helped us on the street on the day of the attack.”
– Yulia Skripal has made her first statement since being released from the hospital after a near-fatal poisoning with the nerve agent Novichok. “My life has been turned upside down,” the daughter of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal told Reuters in Russian, speaking from a secret location in London, where she is under protection from the British state. She made a formal statement on camera and signed a document written in Russian and English, verifying that she is the author of the statement. “We are so lucky to have both survived this attempted assassination," she said in her statement. “Our recovery has been slow and extremely painful.” She declined to discuss the details of her recovery but said in Russian that treatment for the poisoning was “invasive, painful and depressing.” (Much has been made by some of a scar visible on her neck.) Yulia Skripal, 33, and her father were found unconscious on a park bench in Salisbury on March 4. Yulia was in a coma for 20 days and was discharged in April. Sergei, 66, was discharged last week. A Kremlin spokesman said he thought Yulia Skripal was speaking under duress, but Yulia denied that. “No one speaks for me, or for my father but ourselves,” she said. Yulia has declined Russia’s request that she meet with Russia’s ambassador in London. “As I try to come to terms with the devastating changes thrust upon me both physically and emotionally, she said in her statement, “I take one day at a time and want to help care for my Dad till his full recovery.” She said she hopes one day to return to Russia. Work to decontaminate the Wiltshire city where the two were poisoned is still underway, reports the BBC.