The two Russians charged with attempted murder in the Salisbury nerve agent attack have told their story to a TV network funded by The Kremlin.

Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov were interviewed by the editor-in-chief of RT - formerly Russia Today - Margarita Simonyan who said she had "spent an evening" with the suspects.

She promised to air the interview later on Thursday, a day after Vladimir Putin called on the two men to speak to the media.

Petrov and Boshirov have been charged with attempting to murder of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury in March by spraying Novichok nerve agent on the handle of their door. Scotland Yard have said these names are probably aliases.

In a series of tweets, Simonyan said she was called by the two men and carried out the interview in Russian before it was translated to English.

She added: "I wasn't looking for them. More specifically, our journalists were searching for them just like all other professional journalists, through social networks, sources and so on. We even found a few, but not the right ones.

"They refused to give an interview to anyone else, even our journalists, because, in their words, they know me from TV and read my social media and for that reason, again in their words, trust me.”