LONDON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 05th October, 2018) The BBC editor, Mark Urban, who wrote "The Skripal Files" book about Russian ex-intelligence officer Sergei Skripal, said that the poisoning of the double agent in the UK city of Salisbury was bad for the UK security and intelligence services.

Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious in Salisbury and were hospitalized on March 4. The UK authorities said that the Skripals were poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent. London claimed that Russia had orchestrated the poisoning. Russia has categorically denied these allegations noting, that the United Kingdom had not provided any evidence to substantiate its claims.

"Evidently, things went wrong ... It's a problem - what happened. It' s bad reputationally both for security service and MI6 [UK Secret Intelligence Service]," Urban said at a presentation of his book in London on Thursday.

The author suggested that the Salisbury incident was a problem for the US authorities in terms of protecting all the sources working for them in the Russian intelligence. Urban argued that the United Kingdom should have thought about providing more protection to such people.

Urban also insisted that the manuscript of his book had not been submitted for consideration by the UK intelligence. The author admitted that he had maintained contacts with the authorities while he was verifying various aspects of Skripal's story before the poisoning in March. However, there had been no briefings on the part of the UK intelligence, Urban said.

"The Skripal Files" is based on the interviews Urban had with Skripal last year. The excerpts from the book, circulating in the UK media, suggested that Skripal was reluctant to agree with the claims that the Kremlin and that the ex-spy had attacked him and had gone through psychological adjustments after waking up from weeks-long coma following the poisoning. On Wednesday, the Russian embassy in the United Kingdom said it believed the book was used to replace Skripal's testimony in the poisoning case.

After the Salisbury incident, the UK Porton Down lab has said that it could not prove that the nerve agent, used in the attack, was made in Russia or determine its country of origin. The UK Foreign Office has also admitted that the conclusions on Russia's involvement in the Salisbury incident were based on the authorities' evaluations of the information and not on proven facts.

On September 5, UK authorities brought charges against two Russian citizens, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, in the Salisbury poisoning case. UK Prime Minister Theresa May suggested that the Russian military intelligence service was behind the attack, adding that the poisoning had been authorized by the Russian central authorities, something repeatedly denied by Moscow.

In an interview with the RT broadcaster and Sputnik, Petrov and Boshirov said they had visited Salisbury on the day of the incident for touristic purposes adding they knew nothing about the Skripals and were not working for the Russian military intelligence.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said in July that Moscow had submitted to the UK authorities around 60 official requests to allow Russia gain access to the investigation into the Salisbury attack and its victims, who were Russian nationals. Moreover, Moscow has offered to work together with London and carry out a joint investigation into the case. London did not respond to these proposals, instead claiming that Russia rejected its calls for cooperation.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the Skripal case was falling apart due to the lack of evidence proving Russian involvement. The Russian authorities have emphasized that the investigation into the Salisbury poisoning case required scrupulous analysis of data and close cooperation.