MOSCOW, October 16. /TASS/. Bellingcat, a UK-based open source and social media investigation site, is linked to special services, which use it to "dump" information aimed to sway public opinion, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated in an interview with the Euronews channel.

"As we know, and it’s not a secret for anyone, as Western journalists openly write about this, Bellingcat is linked to special services. It is used to dump information that may have some influence on public opinion," the minister said.

Earlier, Bellingcat published the results of their investigation, which names Russian GRU officers allegedly involved in the Skripal poisoning.

On March 4, ex-GRU colonel Sergei Skripal, who had been convicted in Russia of spying for Great Britain, and his daughter Yulia suffered the effects of an alleged nerve agent in the British city of Salisbury. Claiming that the substance used in the attack had been a nerve agent allegedly developed in Russia, London rushed to accuse Moscow of being involved in the incident. The Russian side flatly rejected all of the United Kingdom’s accusations, saying that a program aimed at developing such a substance had existed neither in the Soviet Union nor in Russia.