Soon after the poisoning of Sergey and Yulia Skripali, the British Air Force intercepted the message with the text "The parcel was delivered," writes The Times.

"According to a report to the Sunday Express, the intercepted information was part of a package of intelligence shown to the British allies before the dispatch of dozens of Russian spies and diplomats from more than a dozen countries," report journalists John Simpson and Deborah Hines.

Sunday Express referred to insiders who had seen intelligence and confirmed that analysts of the Royal Air Force intercepted two messages in the south of Cyprus on March 4.

One of them was sent from Syria to the "official" in Moscow. It contained the phrase "The parcel was delivered" and it was also said that two persons "made a successful exit".

"Seeing the message, the captain of aviation remembered another message, which was intercepted the day before and was not taken seriously," reads the article.

"The Ministry of Defense could not confirm these statements, because" they are connected with the ongoing investigation, "reports The Times..

It is claimed that the "Novice", the nerve agent used in the attack, was turned into a slow-acting gel that would give the attacker time to escape.