A RUSSIAN tourist who visited Salisbury last week says 'it is important to meet local people and share opinions' after visiting Salisbury during a trip to the UK.

Petrova Natalia, Romoa Yulia and Semernia Aleksandr were staying in Winchester as part of a university exchange trip, and made the short trip for a day visit to see where the Skripals, and Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess, were poisoned.

Semernia, an English lecturer at a university in Siberia, said: "We have heard so much about the city, and we wanted to see it for ourselves, and to take pictures."

When asked what the Russian public are told about the incidents, Semernia said: "The information we get is 'of course Russia didn't do it'.

"They tell us that if the Russian's really used the poison novichok, these people would die in two minutes, because of how dangerous it is. Because they are alive, that shows it wasn't novichok and especially shows it was not Russia."

Semernia added: "I watched an interview on television with a man who produced novichok in the 1980s or 1990s, and he said it is so dangerous that even if you put a drop of it on someone's skin, in two minutes they are dead.

"Because they walked through the city, had a meal, drank beer, sat on the bench after they had been poisoned, it couldn't have been novichok."

So what did they make of Salisbury in their short visit?

"It is really small, but we walked around, we went to the cathedral, it is nice and peaceful", said Semernia.

"There is a lot of history, and it seems calm."