The Moscow estate where the Skripals lived is a long way from Wiltshire – and some locals are tight-lipped about their former neighbours

The skyline of the west Moscow housing estate where Yulia Skripal grew up is a long way from the green fields and quiet streets of Salisbury, where she remains critically ill in hospital after she and her father, Sergei, were targeted with a nerve agent.

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The Skripals lived in an apartment in a 17-floor Soviet-era residential tower constructed out of prefabricated concrete blocks in the Krylatskoye district, a few stops from the end of the metro line. There are over 1,000 flats in the building, with lists of tenants’ public utilities debts pinned up by the lifts. Just around the corner is the school that Yulia attended from the age of six to 16.

Krylatskoye is a typical Moscow district, and by all accounts the family lived modestly. But reminders of wealth and influence are all around. Visible from the local children’s playground are the soaring towers of Moscow City, the Russian capital’s financial centre. On a nearby busy three-lane road, buses shuttle to and from some of Moscow’s most expensive addresses, including the Rublyovka residential area, home to some of the city’s wealthiest residents.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Moscow housing estate where Yulia Skripal grew up. Photograph: Marc Bennetts/the Guardian

Sergei Skripal spent much of his adult life here, marrying a local woman, Lyudmila, and raising two children. It is unclear if Yulia even knew that her father was a colonel in Russian military intelligence: she would have been just 15 when he retired and went to work in the foreign ministry. Those who knew him say Sergei was a friendly man, who was always welcoming when Yulia’s friends visited the family home.

Through conversations with Yulia’s friends, the Guardian has been able to put together a picture of an intelligent young woman, fluent in English and Spanish as well as Russian, whose comfortable life in Moscow was destroyed when her father was jailed on charges of spying for MI6.

Born in 1984, Yulia spent some of her early childhood in Malta, before starting at school in Moscow in 1990, as the Soviet system began to crumble. If she was aware of her father’s profession, she didn’t let on, friends say.

Irina Petrova, who has known Yulia most of her life, recalls teenage years filled with study and music. “Yulia didn’t say anything at all about her father’s work when we were young. We were just studying and hanging out. Her parents were often at their dacha, and we used to meet at her house a lot when they were away. She loved the Backstreet Boys and Five. After that, Yulia got into Goth, and went around dressed all in black for a while.”

A top student both at school and later at the Russian State University for the Humanities, where she studied geography, Yulia Skripal was 20 when her father was arrested in December 2004. In August 2006, he was sentenced to 13 years in jail and sent to a penal colony in Mordovia, more than 300 miles south-east of Moscow. His imprisonment reportedly put the family into financial difficulties.

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“We were all totally shocked when her father was jailed,” said Petrova. “These were very tough years for Yulia. She was deeply affected by her father’s sentence.”

After university, Yulia went to work at Nike’s Moscow branch, leaving in 2010, after Sergei was released from prison as part of a high-profile prisoner swap involving 10 deep-cover sleeper agents planted in the US by Moscow, including Anna Chapman, a diplomat’s daughter. After serving five and a half years of his sentence, Sergei was plucked from prison and flown to Britain to start a new life. His family soon joined him.

Yulia appeared to love life in England, posting a photograph of Salisbury cathedral to her Facebook page. A video on one of her social media accounts shows the family’s back garden in Salisbury. “Little rascal,” Yulia says, as a squirrel munches on primroses in the well-cared-for flowerbed. She passed her driving test while in England and bought a car. She worked for a while at the Holiday Inn in Southampton, where she appears to have been popular with her colleagues.

Quick guide How hard is it to make a nerve agent? Show Hide Nerve agents are not hard to make in principle, but in practice it takes specialised facilities and training to mix the substances safely. The raw materials themselves are inexpensive and generally not hard to obtain, but the lethality of the agents means they tend to be manufactured in dedicated labs. The main five nerve agents are tabun, which is the easiest to make, sarin, soman, GF and VX. The latter was used to kill Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, at Kuala Lumpur airport last year. VX is particularly stable and can remain on clothing, furniture and the ground for a long time without proper decontamination. All pure nerve agents are colourless organophosphorus liquids which, after they were discovered to be highly poisonous in the 1930s, became the dominant chemical weapons of the second world war. Once made, the substances are easy to disperse, highly toxic, and have rapid effects. Most are absorbed swiftly through the skin or inhaled, but they can also be added to food and drink. The agents take their toll on the body by disrupting electrical signals throughout the nervous system and the effects are fast and dramatic. Victims find it increasingly hard to breathe. Their lungs produce more mucus which can make them cough and foam at the mouth. They sweat, their pupils constrict, and their eyes run. The effects on the digestive system trigger vomiting. Meanwhile the muscles convulse. Many of those affected will wet themselves and lose control of their bowels. At high doses, failure of the nerves and muscles of the respiratory system can kill before other symptoms have time to develop. There are antidotes for nerve agents, such as oxime and atropine, which are particularly effective against VX and sarin, but they should be given soon after exposure to be effective.

“She took to England like a fish to water. Yulia isn’t a typical Russian. She reminds me more of an Englishwoman or an American. Always smiling and waving. Her mother was the same. She was always in a good mood. Never discussed any problems,” said Petrova.

The family was hit by tragedy in 2012, when Yulia’s mother, Lyudmila, died in England of cancer. Last year, her older brother, Alexander, died of liver failure while on holiday in St Petersburg at the age of 43. He was buried in Salisbury, near his mother. The BBC cited relatives who say the circumstances of his death were suspicious. Yulia removed family photographs from her social media account last year, according to friends. It remains unclear why. She returned to Russia in 2014, but continued to visit England often.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Specialist officers in protective suits secure the police forensic tent covering the bench where Sergei and Yulia Skripal were found critically ill. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

At Krylatskoye, locals were tight-lipped about their former neighbours. Some claimed not to have heard about the Skripals’ poisoning, while others simply declined to comment.

“After we heard the news about what had happened, we were all hoping that it wasn’t our friend, Yulia,” said Petrova. “She is completely innocent of anything and she has her whole life ahead of her. I’m praying that she and her father survive this.”