The UK security services are most likely hiding the Skripals as they do not want them to reveal any details about their case, former Czech spy Karel Koecher told RT’s Sophie Shevardnadze.

“[Former Russian double agent Sergei] Skripal most definitely wasn’t a victim of any kind of operation or attack from the Russian side,” said Koecher, who was a Soviet mole who successfully penetrated the CIA. He went on to say that “as far as Russia is concerned, and I honestly believe it, they had absolutely no interest in Skripal at all,” adding that the mere fact that Moscow had previously agreed to swap him for Russian agents was evidence of that.

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Attacking the former agent after he was swapped would “totally destroy Russian credibility as far as [spy] exchanges are concerned,” said the former Czech spy. He then explained that a spy swap is almost the “only way” to get agents with no diplomatic cover back in the event that they are caught or arrested. The Russian authorities would never put this mechanism in any kind of danger “because they certainly have to get their people back if they get into trouble.”

The whole Salisbury incident in which Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were poisoned looks more like a false flag attack, Koecher told Shevardnadze. The Skripals might just have become a “good opportunity” for “some kind of scenario of anti-Russian operations,” he said. “Maybe, it was just made up to have some kind of reason to escalate the anti-Russian operations and sanctions in public,” he suggested.

The UK security services are apparently hiding the former Russian double agent and his daughter “as much as they can,” Koecher said, adding that they would probably never let the two meet with Russian officials because London apparently fears that they could disclose facts which it does not want to become available to the public.

“The whole thing is so suspicious, you know, you cannot know what he [Sergei Skripal] is going to say,” Koecher said. “So even if he agrees to say what they [the British intelligence] tell him to say, he might change his mind when he is speaking on camera,” the former spy added.

Watch the full interview here.