Novichok Suspects 'Have Anything To With Putin', Says Russia

The men, who identified themselves as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, told Russian state television RT that they visited Salisbury in early March because they wanted to see the southern English town's famous cathedral.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May says the two men are Russian intelligence officers, claims which they and the Russian government has denied.

Petrov and Boshirov, who claimed they were not using pseudonyms, told RT their friends had told them to visit "this wonderful town, Salisbury, which has a famous cathedral and 123m spire, and is famous for its clock".

The pair denied the British claim they were Russian military intelligence officers, saying they work in the nutritional supplements business.

According to interlocutors of Agency, suspects the Russians was shown on the Russian propaganda channel RT as a punishment for them for leaving footprints during the RAID.

A screengrab taken on September 13, 2018, from footage broadcast by Russia's state broadcaster Russia Today (RT), shows two men, purported to be Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov taking part in a television interview.

She said: "Unfortunately we have had quite a history of foreign leaders and foreign secret services lying to the world".

The two Russian men spun an unlikely tale of hapless tourists defeated by grim British weather: They traveled more than 1609 kilometres to see England's famed Salisbury Cathedral but were turned back by slush and snow, then returned the next day and spent two hours exploring the "beautiful" city.

Moscow has refused to extradite the two men Britain suspects of killing Litvinenko, and one of them, Andrei Lugovoi, went on to become a Russian lawmaker.

"They have not done so so far", Singh said.

The pair first travelled there by train on Saturday, March 3. Witnesses say cannabis wafted from their twin room in the two-star City Stay Hotel in Bow, East London, as they partied through the night.

Salisbury MP John Glen said these statements were not credible and what they said did not match United Kingdom intelligence.

The announced interview comes just a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin had said that Russia located two men but that nothing criminal or special was related to them.

The men are civilians and "we know who they are", Putin told an economic forum in Vladivostok on Wednesday in his first comments on the United Kingdom allegations. They might have been spotted on the same street as the Skripals' house, they said, but they had no idea the former spy lived there.

"Neither Petrov nor Boshirov have anything to do with Putin", Peskov said, adding that they have nothing to do with the Kremlin either. "Russian investigative reporter Sergei Kanev, who worked with Bellingcat, said that 'normal people" did not get their passports at the Russian defence ministry, 'only people who often work undercover, including the intelligence services".

They all recovered but a fake perfume bottle containing Novichok was picked up by a local man.

The pair said that they had never dealt with the media before and if Putin had not urged them to speak out they would have recorded a video statement.