Julia and Sergej Skripal (archive photo from 2018)
Photo: imago / Russian Look
Sergej Skripal, who survived a poison attack with the nerve agent Novichok in 2018, apparently has permanent breathing difficulties as a result of the attack.
The daughter of the British-Russian double agent told her relatives in Russia.
As Sergej Skripal's niece Viktoria Skripal confirmed to SPIEGEL, his daughter Julia called her on November 21.
She said that Sergej Skripal was looked after by a medical nurse around the clock.
He breathes through a cannula that needs to be cleaned every day.
This restricts him from exercising and prevents him from driving.
Viktoria Skripal gave a recording of the call to the tabloid "Moskowskij Komsomolez", which printed the phone call.
In the past, she had made family details public on Russian talk shows, which is why she was reprimanded by Julia Skripal.
Julia Skripal herself says she sustained hardly any permanent damage from the attack.
All she complained on the phone was that she had trouble focusing her eyes.
Viktoria Skripal lives with Sergej Skripal's 93-year-old mother in Yaroslavl north of Moscow.
Julia and Sergej Skripal apparently still live in Great Britain, in separate places.
Both were found unconscious on a bench in Sergei Skripal's Salisbury residence in March 2018.
It turned out that the nerve agent Novichok had been applied to the door handle of Skripal's house.
The substance from the Cold War era was developed and produced in the laboratories of the Soviet Union.
Officers from the Russian military intelligence service GRU, of which Skripal had once belonged, were spotted in the Salisbury area at the same time.
Law enforcement officers and intelligence services from numerous countries are convinced that the GRU was behind the attack on Skripal (read more here).
A British woman was accidentally a victim of the attack.
The neurotoxin from which she died was identical to the substance used in the attack on the Skripals.
This year, Novitschok hit the headlines again: A neurotoxin from the Novitschok group was also used in the attack on the Russian opposition politician Alexej Navalny.
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