A newly released poll says that only 3 percent of Russians believe that their country’s intelligence services were behind the poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal in Britain earlier this year.
Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy who leaked secrets to Western intelligence, was found slumped on a public bench in Salisbury on March 4 along with his daughter, Yulia. British prosecutors charged two Russians for being behind the attempted murder, a claim Moscow has repeatedly denied. Following the attack, Russian state media claimed that Britain had orchestrated the poisoning to nourish Russophobia.
The results of the survey published by the independent Levada Center pollster on Thursday say that 28 percent of Russians believe that British intelligence services were behind Skripals’ poisoning, with only 3 percent saying they believe their own intelligence officers carried out the attack.
Another 56 percent said that "it could have been anyone."
Meanwhile, 37 percent of respondents said they knew about the case in detail and 33 percent said they had “heard something” about it, with another 20 percent saying they had heard nothing about the poisoning.
Levada conducted its survey among 1,600 respondents in 52 Russian regions between Oct. 18 and Oct. 24.
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