On 4 March, Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in Salisbury, creating shockwaves worldwide and leaving the West’s relations with Moscow colder than ever. Yesterday, Yulia was discharged from hospital and moved to a safe house. Here, Yulia’s best friend, Irina Petrova, tells Grazia’s Anna Silverman about the mysterious life of the ex-spy’s daughter.
Irina Petrova is nervous, her fingers trembling, as she pulls out old photographs of her and her best friend of 27 years, Yulia Skripal. In a faint voice she says, ‘this is when she had blonde hair, and here she is with red hair.’ Then, a flicker of a smile flashes over her troubled face as she turns to the next picture: ‘Here she is as a goth,’ she says of Yulia, who seemingly reinvented herself regularly.
‘This was New Year’s Eve 2003 with her dad, Sergei,’ she recalls, of a shot of them beaming, rosy-cheeked, into the camera. But looking at these photos is painful for Irina after Yulia and her father, former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal, became victims of an assassination attempt on 4 March.
They were found slumped on a bench in Salisbury after being poisoned by a chemical weapon nerve agent novichok. The attack sparked enormous repercussions globally – triggering more expulsions of Russian diplomats from countries around the world than at the height of the Cold War after Theresa May said it was ‘highly likely’ Moscow was behind it.
Initially, the prospect of the pair surviving seemed slim, but, incredibly, a fortnight ago Yulia woke from her coma. Sergei is no longer in a critical condition and it is thought he will be discharged from hospital in due course. It is still unclear whether the poisoning will have a long-term impact on their health.
Irina, 33, who became friends with Yulia in Moscow after they met at primary school aged six, is still in shock and visiting church as much as she can to pray for her friend. She is, of course, relieved Yulia is conscious, but worried she might never get her back.
‘I’m praying the poison didn’t cause her brain damage,’ she says. ‘I’m going to visit her as soon as I’m allowed.’
Three weeks after the attack, I meet Irina in a restaurant in Hamburg, where she’s lived since 2015 after moving for her husband’s job. She’s desperately trying to piece together what she can about the poisoning – reading up on novichok and checking the news constantly for updates.
Until now, it had never occurred to Irina that Yulia, 33, might have been worried about the repercussions of her father’s former job. She did, however, find it strange that Yulia didn’t tell her when her mother Ludmila died in 2012, or her brother Alexander in 2017.
‘Year after year, everybody was dead,’ she says. ‘It was so quick. I found out from my mother, who bumped into Yulia in the street in Moscow. I asked what happened and she told me it was cancer. After the mysterious death of her brother [reported to be from liver disease], I was shocked. He was a big, healthy guy. After that she deleted all photos with relatives from her social media – maybe so no other loved ones could be tracked down. She used to post a lot of photos of her brother and her father.’
She tells me Yulia lived in Moscow with her boyfriend of four years – who’s been named as Stepan Vikeev, 30, and reported to be a Russian secret service agent – and they had two dogs.
According to Irina, Yulia was often home alone because her boyfriend worked night shifts in what she describes as ‘a special government organisation’. Irina says she doesn’t know him and he’s not on social media, adding, ‘Because of his job he isn’t allowed to travel abroad.’
As far as Irina knew, Yulia worked at the food company PepsiCo. But when I rang to check, I was told Yulia hadn’t worked there for a year. Irina says she finds this ‘pretty strange’, but admits Yulia had been ‘private’ and ‘an introvert’.
Yulia’s cousin Viktoria recently announced she wants to take Yulia home to Russia. But Irina finds this strange. ‘Viktoria wasn’t too close to Yulia,’ she says.
When Irina first heard about the Salisbury attack, she thought, ‘This can’t be Yulia. I didn’t even know she was in England.’ I ask whether Yulia would usually tell her when she made a trip abroad. ‘Yes, of course. She told me when she went to England for New Year in 2017. But I suppose she doesn’t have to tell me about her every step.’
Next, Irina called a number of Yulia’s friends who’d gone to school or university with her. But she soon realised she and Yulia had been the only ones to stay in touch. Everyone had seen the news, but no one else had spoken to Yulia for years.
‘They must have lost contact. I knew she didn’t see many people. Once, I asked her why and she said she didn’t mind being alone.’
Adding to the mystery, Irina says Yulia’s page on VK (a Russian social network) was active three days after the attack, when Yulia was reportedly fighting for her life in hospital. ‘I saw someone log into Yulia’s page at 6.35am on 7 March,’ says Irina. She decided to piece together a timeline of events before the attack to find out if Yulia had been looking over her shoulder for years.
Her father Sergei had moved to Britain as part of a spy-swap deal in 2010. Before this, he spent four years in a Russian prison for spying, but, says Irina, his daughter was adamant he was innocent.
Yulia initially left Moscow to follow him to Salisbury and then moved back in 2015 to be with her boyfriend. Two years later, her brother suddenly died and it was shortly afterwards that she deleted her photos. ‘I went through her profile last week to try to work out when this was,’ says Irina. ‘I think it was around July 2017.’
Irina paints a picture of Yulia as an intelligent young woman who spoke several languages, was always top of the class and loved music. ‘I’ve got videos of her dancing to Backstreet Boys.’
She says all their friends would party at Yulia’s house. ‘Sometimes we’d carry on until 11am the next day. Sergei and Ludmila would often go away at the weekend so everyone would go to Yulia’s. But if her parents were there, they were welcoming and would party with us. When Sergei was arrested for espionage, it was on every news channel. We were really surprised. Yulia wouldn’t talk about it.’
Irina says she and Yulia spoke all the time before the attack but, because they live in separate countries and Irina has two small children, they hadn’t managed to meet up since 2014. ‘She invited me to England when she used to live there, but I didn’t have time because of my kids and I needed a visa,’ she says.
When I ask if Yulia ever talked about having children, Irina indicates she might have deliberately held off. ‘She loved kids, but it’s a difficult life. If you look at what’s happened, she couldn’t predict anything.’
Like many Russians, Irina isn’t sure Russia is to blame for the poisoning. ‘It is the whole world against Russia at the moment,’ she says. Whether Yulia and Sergei are safe is unclear: the attacker remains at large.
‘Yulia is an amazing person who never said a bad word to anyone,’ says Irina. ‘It’s so unfair this has happened to her. I wish I could speak to her to ask what’s going on.'