The two men accused by the UK of carrying out a nerve agent attack in Salisbury have been identified and are civilians, not criminals, Vladimir Putin has said.

“We know who they are; we have found them,” the Russian president said at an economic forum in the eastern city of Vladivostok, adding that the two men – named by the UK as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov – may soon make appearances in the media to protest their innocence.

“These are civilians,” Putin said in remarks reported by Russian news agencies. “There is nothing criminal here.”

A man who purported to be Petrov later said that he may appear on state television to give his side of the story, but was unclear if he was the suspect sought by the British police. “I don’t have any comment for now,” he told the Russian state news agency Russia 24 when asked for comment by telephone. “Maybe later. I think next week.”

British officials have said the men were agents of Russian military intelligence dispatched to kill Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy who had given information to British intelligence. He was imprisoned in Russia before being released in a spy swap in 2010.

Putin’s remarks appeared to be a denial that the men worked for Russia’s military intelligence service, commonly called the GRU.

British officials this month charged the two men in absentia with the attempted murder with novichok of Sergei Skripal, his daughter, Yulia, and a police officer who investigated the scene. Scotland Yard released CCTV images of the two suspects at Salisbury train station on the day of the attack.

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Theresa May told parliament this month that the attack “was almost certainly also approved outside the GRU at a senior level of the Russian state”. Scotland Yard has issued a European arrest warrant for the two men, who have not been seen publicly since the attack in March.

Little is known about their identity, and British police believe the names in their passports may be fake. The Russian news agency Fontanka found traffic tickets and a Moscow apartment where Boshirov is registered, but neighbours have never seen him. Even less is known about Petrov. A man with the same name and birth date works for a Russian state company that produces vaccines.

Scotland Yard said the two men had “travelled extensively” on their passports. Fontanka reported that the two had visited Milan, Geneva, Amsterdam and Paris several times since September 2016.

Downing Street responded to Putin’s statement by repeating the accusation that the two men were Russian military intelligence agents and accused Moscow of continuing to respond with “obfuscation and lies” when asked by the UK to account for what happened in the Wiltshire city.

May’s official spokesman said: “The prime minister set out the position very clearly last week. The police and Crown Prosecution Service have identified these men as the prime suspects of the attack in Salisbury.

“These men are officers of the Russian military intelligence, the GRU, who used a devastating, toxic, illegal chemical weapon on the streets of our country. The government has exposed the role of the GRU, its operatives and its methods. This position is supported by our international allies.

“We have repeatedly asked Russia to account for what happened in Salisbury in March. They have replied with obfuscation and lies. I have seen nothing to suggest that has changed.”

Putin called on the two men to appear in the media to protest their innocence, saying he “wanted to address them directly”. The Russian’s president’s words marked a departure from his country’s earlier position, which was to dismiss the evidence released by Scotland Yard as a fabrication.

A foreign ministry spokeswoman previously claimed that video stills showing the two men at Gatwick airport had been doctored because they showed both men passing through passport control at the same time. The airport has more than one corridor for arriving passengers.

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The Skripals survived exposure to the nerve agent, as did PC Nick Bailey and Charlie Rowley, who found a bottle containing novichok. Rowley’s partner, Dawn Sturgess, died in July after being exposed to the poison.

The attack has led to the largest break in relations between London and Moscow since the end of the cold war. After the incident on 4 March, the UK and more than two dozen other countries expelled a total of 150 Russian spies working under diplomatic cover. Russia kicked out a similar number of those countries’ envoys.

The reaction eclipsed that which followed the 2006 poisoning of the former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko with the radioactive isotope polonium-210. Litvinenko’s accused murderers, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, have become public figures in Russia since the attack, regularly making appearances in the media, with Lugovoi becoming a member of parliament.

Viktoria Skripal, a niece of the poisoned spy who has been elected to local government in Russia since the March attack, said on Wednesday that through sources she knew that Boshirov and Petrov were “ordinary people”.

“They and their relatives are fully puzzled, they are shocked by what is happening,” she told the Interfax news agency.