Former Russian double agent critically ill in Britain, police says 'alive to fact of state threats'

SALISBURY, England (Reuters) - A former Russian double agent convicted of treason in Moscow was critically ill in a British hospital on Tuesday after exposure to an unknown substance, with police saying it had to be “alive to the fact of state threats”.

In its first response, the Kremlin said it was ready to cooperate if Britain asked for help in its investigation of the “tragic situation”.

Sergei Skripal, once a colonel in Russia’s GRU military intelligence service, was given refuge in Britain after he was exchanged in 2010 for Russian spies caught in the West as part of a Cold War-style spy swap on the tarmac of Vienna airport.

But the 66-year-old former spy and a 33-year-old woman who was known to him were found unconscious on a bench in a shopping center on Sunday in the English city of Salisbury after exposure to what police said was an unknown substance.

Both were critically ill in intensive care.

While the British authorities said there was no known risk to the public, police sealed off the area where the former spy was found and a pizza restaurant called Zizzi in the center of Salisbury. Some investigators wore yellow chemical suits.

British police did not release the names of those who were being treated but two sources close to the investigation told Reuters that the critically ill man was Skripal. It was unclear what the substance was, they said.

“We’re speaking to witnesses, we’re taking forensic samples at the scene, we’re doing toxicology work and that will help us to get to an answer,” said Mark Rowley, Britain’s top counter-terrorism officer.

“We have to remember: Russian exiles aren’t immortal, they do all die and there can be a tendency to conspiracy theories. But likewise we have to be alive to the fact of state threats,” Rowley told BBC radio before referring to the murder of Alexander Litvinenko.

A British inquiry said President Vladimir Putin probably approved the 2006 murder of ex-KGB agent Litvinenko with radioactive polonium-210 in London. The Kremlin has repeatedly denied any involvement in the killing of Litvinenko.

Litvinenko, 43, an outspoken critic of Putin who fled Russia for Britain six years to the day before he was poisoned, died after drinking green tea laced with the rare and very potent radioactive isotope at London’s Millennium Hotel.

It took some time for British doctors to discern the cause of Litvinenko’s illness.

RUSSIAN SPY

The Kremlin said it was ready to cooperate if Britain asks it for help investigating the incident with Skripal.

“Nobody has approached us with such a request,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with reporters, when asked if the British authorities had been in touch seeking help. “Moscow is always open for cooperation.”