Sergey Skripal

The chief suspects behind the Salisbury poisonings and the organisers of an alleged coup in Montenegro in 2016 may have had close links, according to the British conservative Daily Telegraph newspaper, citing a Bellingcat investigation.

On September 7, 1978, the Bulgarian journalist, playwright and dissident from the regime of the People's Republic of Bulgaria, Georgi Markov, was poisoned with a ricin-filled pellet shot from a modified umbrella while crossing Waterloo Bridge in London. Four days later, he died.

Russia's embassy in Tirana on Thursday criticised Albania's Foreign Ministry for issuing a statement directly blaming Russia for the chemical attack on a former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal, in Salisbury, England, on March 4.

Russia is preparing retaliatory measures against the U.K. over its decision to expel 23 Russian diplomats, the Kremlin said today, promising they would "not be long in coming."

"They are being formulated in the foreign ministry and in other bodies," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in a briefing call, adding that president Vladimir Putin will make the final decision.

Former Russian intelligence colonel Sergei Skripal has suffered severely after contact with an unknown substance at a shopping center in the English town of Salisbury, the BBC reported.