The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) should press the country’s authorities for answers in relation to the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal instead of making films about the Salisbury incident, the Russian embassy in Great Britain said on Twitter.

"Fully agree with The Sunday Times: rather than creating fiction films, the BBC would do better service to the public if they pressed authorities to provide answers and proofs of what actually happened in Salisbury," the embassy said, commenting on an article criticizing the BBC’s plans to make "a two-part prestige drama about… the novichok poisonings in Salisbury."

According to London, former Russian military intelligence (GRU) Colonel Sergei Skripal, who had been convicted in Russia of spying for Great Britain and later swapped for Russian intelligence officers, and his daughter Yulia suffered the effects of an alleged nerve agent in the British city of Salisbury on March 4, 2018. Claiming that the substance used in the attack had been a Novichok-class nerve agent developed in the Soviet Union, London rushed to accuse Russia of being involved in the incident. Moscow rejected all of the United Kingdom’s accusations. Chief Executive of the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) at Porton Down Gary Aitkenhead said later that British experts had been unable to identify the origin of the nerve agent used in the attack on the Skripals.

On June 30, 2018, 44-year-old Dawn Sturgess and 45-year-old Charles Rowley were hospitalized in critical condition in the British town of Amesbury. The Metropolitan Police claimed the two had been exposed to Novichok. Sturgess died on July 8, while Rowley was discharged from the hospital on July 20.

On September 5, 2018, British Prime Minister Theresa May told the country’s parliament about the conclusions that investigators looking into the Salisbury incident had come to, saying that two Russians, believed to be GRU agents, were suspected of conspiracy to murder the Skripals. The Metropolitan Police published the suspects’ photos, saying their names were Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov.