Deteriorating Condition of a Former Russian Spy Due to 'Exposure to an Unknown Substance'

The Kremlin expressed readiness on Tuesday, March 5, to cooperate in the case of the suspicious illness of a former spy in the UK. Reports indicate that the cause of the currently unknown illness of Sergei Skripal, a former colonel in the Russian military intelligence service, is 'exposure to an unknown substance.' According to Reuters, Mr. Skripal remains in critical condition in a hospital in southern England. This former spy was hospitalized after a passerby found his condition and that of a young woman accompanying him suspicious and contacted the police. Reports state that this passerby found Mr. Skripal and the young woman 'semi-conscious' on a bench. Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, described the incident as 'tragic' during a phone conversation with reporters and expressed readiness to cooperate with the British government on this matter. Mr. Peskov, according to Reuters, stated that he was unaware of the reasons and details of the incident, adding that the British government had not yet contacted Russia regarding this matter, but 'Moscow is always ready to cooperate.' The spokesman for Vladimir Putin also gave a sarcastic response to speculation that Moscow had 'poisoned' this former spy. In early summer 2010, Vienna, the capital of Austria, was the site of a swap of 14 spies between the United States and Russia: the U.S. handed over a spy to Moscow in exchange for four of its own spies. Sergei Skripal, 66, was one of these four, who, according to the British newspaper The Guardian, had bought a house in the UK in 2011 and had been living there. Mr. Skripal's suspicious illness has primarily reminded media personnel of the case of Alexander Litvinenko, who, according to an official British government report, was poisoned by the Russian government. Alexander Litvinenko, a former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service, sought asylum in the UK in 2000 after joining the ranks of critics of Vladimir Putin. Six years later, he died in a London hotel from poisoning caused by the radioactive substance polonium. This former security officer had met with two Russian men in the hotel in central London just hours before symptoms of a severe illness appeared. The Kremlin criticized the final report of the British commission investigating Litvinenko's death in January 2016, deeming it 'unreliable.'