In 2018, a diplomatic conflict broke out between the UK and Russia over the mysterious poisoning of former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal. The daughter of the deceased, Yulia Skripal, who suffered because of the paralytic gas used by an unknown person, also came under close public scrutiny.
Yulia Skripal was born in 1984 in Malta, where she lived with her parents until 1990. Later the family moved to Moscow. When the girl turned 15, her father was already retired and worked at the Foreign Ministry. Julia had a very ordinary life: she liked the work of the Five and Backstreet Boys, she was impressed by the culture of the Goths. Studying was easy for the girl and after leaving school she entered the Russian State University for the Humanities.
In 2004, Sergei Skripal was arrested on espionage charges and sentenced to 13 years in prison, after serving his sentence in a penal colony in Mordovia. This period became a difficult test for the whole family, which began to experience serious financial difficulties. In 2010, Yulia's father was released after a petition for pardon, and Sergei decided to move with his family to the UK, which provided the former intelligence officer with citizenship and a pension.
Life in the small English town of Salisbury passed without incident until 2012, when Julia's mother died of cancer. A few years later, in 2016, her older brother Alexander suddenly died. The latter event came as a shock to Julia and her father, who discovered several suspicious circumstances that indicated that third parties could be involved in the death.
Yulia's career began to take shape back in Moscow, where she got a job at the Nike office immediately after graduating from university. In the UK, she worked at the Holiday Inn in Southampton. The girl got a license and actively drives a car, she perfectly learned English and Spanish. She liked life in Britain, and other residents most often mistook her for a local.
After the death of close relatives, Julia decided to return to Moscow, where she got a job at PepsiCo Russia, and later received a position at the visa center at the US Consulate. Sergei Skripal stayed in the UK, and his daughter often visited her father. During a regular visit in early March 2018, Yulia and Sergei were found unconscious and without visible bodily harm near a local shopping center. During the emergency hospitalization, it became clear that the cause of the fainting was severe poisoning with an unknown nerve agent. The victims spent more than a month in a coma.
In addition to Sergei and Yulia Skripal, policemen and passers-by were injured, who were the first at the scene of the tragedy. This forced the British government to launch a large-scale investigation, during which the cause of the poisoning was established - a Novichok-class war agent, developed back in the Soviet Union. As a result, the incident was recognized by the local authorities as an attempted murder, which could have been carried out by undercover Russian agents.
On March 29, Yulia Skripal regained consciousness and began to recover quickly. Her father is still in critical condition, but doctors and relatives continue to hope for his recovery. The girl thanked everyone who helped her and her father to survive, and expressed the hope that the media would not bother them during the recovery period.
At the moment, it is known that recently Julia became the owner of a fortune of 150 thousand pounds sterling, which she inherited from the sale of the house, which the girl owned with her deceased brother. She is also in a relationship with Stepan Vikeev, whose mother is a high-ranking employee of one of the Russian power structures. The couple is officially registered in a Moscow apartment on Davydkovskaya Street. The wedding of the young people was scheduled for 2018, but due to the assassination attempt it was postponed for an unknown date.
