MOSCOW -- At the U.N. Thursday, Russia's ambassador pushed back hard against allegations that Moscow poisoned a former spy and his daughter in the U.K. He said British officials are "playing with fire" and will be sorry. This comes after Russian state television said it has a new recording of one of the victims.

Even for state television, it was a remarkable coup: Yulia Skripal had recovered enough from being poisoned to call her cousin.

"Everything is fine," Yulia is alleged to have said. The unverified call was presented to a studio audience in Moscow. She also said that her father, Sergei Skripal, who is still in critical condition in a U.K. hospital, was sleeping.

Military personnel in protective suits remove a police car and other vehicles from a public car park as they investigate the poisoning of Sergei Skripal on March 11, 2018 in Salisbury, England. Getty

Russia state television has been in overdrive ever since Britain accused the Kremlin of poisoning the Skripals using novichok, a Russian nerve agent. One popular TV host said that blaming Russia was like saying if someone's hit in the head with an iPad, you should blame the U.S., since it's an American invention.

"Which is totally absurd," said Mikael Fishman, the former editor of The Moscow Times. "This is how the Russian nation sets its political agenda and sees the world through the Kremlin's eyes."

It's still not known if Yulia made that phone call, but British police said Thursday they've released her first public comments since the attack, in which she says her strength is growing daily but made no mention of her father.