Updated 18:35

The British government has dismissed claims by the two suspects in the Salisbury case as "lies and blatant fabrications"

It comes after the two men accused of targeting Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia with the novichok nerve agent in Salisbury earlier this year denied being agents or having anything to do with the poisoning.

Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov told the TV station Russia Today they were only in Salisbury as tourists to visit Stonehenge and the local cathedral. 

The pair, who say that is their real names, said their friends had told them to visit "this wonderful town"

"There's the famous Salisbury cathedral, famous not only in Europe but in the whole world.

"It's famous for its 123m spire, it's famous for its clock - the one of the first ever created in the world that's still working", Petrov said.

They said they wanted to go to Stonehenge but were prevented from doing so because there was "muddy slush everywhere", they got wet so they went back to London.

RT's editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan said the two men reached out to her as they wanted to tell their story.

"Even now when you're talking about it, to tell the truth you look very nervous", Simonyan suggested.

"What would you look like?", Boshirov replied.

When your life is turned upside down in a moment - in just one day it changed our lives", Petrov added.

"We spent no more than an hour in Salisbury, mainly because of the lags between trains,” Boshirov said.

"Maybe we did [approach] Skripal's house, but we don’t know where is it located."

'Lies and fabrications'

The Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the two men had been identified and they were civilians and "not criminals".

British Prime Minister Theresa May, however, has said the men were agents of Russia's foreign military intelligence agency, the GRU, and their actions were "almost certainly also approved outside the GRU at a senior level of the Russian state".

In a statement today, Downing Street dismissed the claims from the two suspects.

A spokesperson said: "The lies and blatant fabrications in this interview given to a Russian state-sponsored TV station are an insult to the public's intelligence.

"More importantly they are deeply offensive to the victims and loved ones of this horrific attack."

As well as the Skripals, police officer Nick Bailey fell ill as a result of contact with nerve agent.

Police also believe Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess came into contact with the same batch of novichok in Amesbury, near Salisbury.

Ms Sturgess fell critically ill and died.

The nerve agent is said to have been disguised in a fake perfume bottle.