Yulia Skripal was poisoned by the nerve agent just days after she was granted access to a 'secret bank account' by her father
The news has emerged that Yulia Skripal, the daughter of the former Russian double agent, Sergei Skripal, was poisoned with the deadly nerve agent just a few days after she was granted access to a £150,000 "secret bank account". The proceeds from the account came from the sale of a house in Britain.
The money had reportedly belonged to her brother, Alexander, who had died under mysterious circumstances in St. Petersburg in 2017.
Yulia had been given the power of attorney over the amount by her father Sergei in late February. The pair were poisoned by the chemical Novichok on March 4 in Salisbury, UK.
The money, which is now in an unknown bank in Russia, was from the sale of the house that Alexander had lived in with his ex-wife, Natalia, who is the daughter of a GRU military intelligence colonel. Natalia sold the house and gave half of the money to Sergei, Alexander's father. She is now married to a tennis coach from Wales.
45-year-old Viktoria Skripal, Sergei's niece, is the one who revealed details about the "secret bank account". She is planning to travel to meet Yulia in the hospital this week. The authorities are going to grant her a visa so she can become the first family member to meet her cousin and her uncle, who still remains in a coma.
When speaking about her cousin's current condition, Viktoria said: "The only thing I discovered from our (Russian) diplomats is that Yulia has opened her eyes, can eat, drink and has even said a few words."
The family has not spoken to Yulia by phone or by social media as of now. Viktoria spoke about the money saying: "Nobody knows this yet."
"At the end of February, Yulia received a general power of attorney from her father Sergei in order to take ownership of a secret bank account that belonged to her late brother Alexander. After his divorce, his wife Natalia paid him $200,000 USD, and he kept this money. It is in a Russian bank now."
Viktoria, who is from Yaroslavl, has spoken again about the concerns she had last month over Yulia's unnamed boyfriend whom her cousin had said she wanted to get married to. "I think he is a strange man," she said. "We visited Yulia once in 2013. She was living with him in her father's apartment in (Moscow) then. And he did not even come out of the room to say 'Hello'. This man is like a phantom."
She also said that when her cousin Yulia was poisoned by the dangerous chemical, "he didn't even say 'miaow'".
The true identity of Yulia's mysterious boyfriend is being hidden by the Russian media for some unknown reason. Publications in Russia have alleged that the man and his mother work for a company which has links to the Russian secret service.
Viktoria had claimed earlier that Yulia's boyfriend's mother was completely against the marriage of her son to the daughter of a Russian "traitor". Both the man and his mother have not come forward to speak on the nerve agent scandal.
Yulia's boyfriend has still not made contact with the Salisbury hospital where she and her father are being treated, according to an indictment made in March by a High Court judge. Natalia, who is now 45-years-old, is living in Cyprus with her tennis coach husband, Welshman Wyn Lewis. She was torn up by the "premature" death of her ex-husband six years after they parted ways.
Her father, GRU colonel Gennady Grishchenko, was Sergei Skripal's best friend before the man was exposed as a "traitor" for spying secretly for the British intelligence agency, MI6. Grishchenko broke all ties with Skripal but he did not stop the relationship his daughter had with Alexander.
In a very emotional message that Natalia posted on social media on July 25 last year on 43-year-old Alexander's sudden demise, she wrote in English: "I don't like sharing my private life, but today I want to ask all my friends about something…"
"Tomorrow will be nine (9) days since a man, who was very close to me, has died. He died suddenly and very prematurely. He was my first big love. I was proudly carrying his surname. Destiny moved us to different continents, hard to say now whether it was for right or wrong."
"Would he have gone that early if we were to still be together, or was everything preset in advance and my destiny was simply kind to me and took me away from becoming a widow aged 44? I don't know… But he will forever stay in my heart as a memory of, if not my adolescence, certainly my youth."
"A very wise friend told me that people who left us don't like us crying for them. They need our prayers. So if this is not difficult for you, please can you go to a church tomorrow and light up a candle for his soul to find peace."
"Forgive me for everything Sasha. Rest in peace."
It is not known why she said "forgive me" or what she meant by it. Reports have said that Alexander died of a liver failure last year.