Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a speech in his campaign headquarters that Moscow was not involved in the poisoning of former Colonel GRU Sergey Skripal and his daughter in the UK.

- I think that any sane person understands that this is complete nonsense, nonsense, nonsense, that someone in Russia will allow himself such antics before the presidential elections and the World Cup. This is inconceivable. As for this tragedy, I learned about it from the media. The first thing that comes to mind is that if it was a chemical warfare agent, people would die on the spot. Russia has no such means, we destroyed all our chemical weapons under the supervision of international observers, "he said..

He added that Moscow is ready to cooperate in the investigation of the case, but for this there must be an interest on the other hand.