RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin today claimed a former spy poisoned in Britain had betrayed the motherland - branding Sergei Skripal a "scumbag".

The former double agent and his daughter Yulia were infamously found slumped on a public bench in Salisbury in March.

The British authorities say they were poisoned with a nerve agent administered by a pair of undercover Russian intelligence officers.

Russia and Putin strongly deny any involvement in the shocking affair, which has deepened Moscow's international isolation in recent months.

"I see that some of your colleagues are pushing the theory that Mr Skripal was almost some kind of human rights activist," Putin said at an energy forum in Moscow.

"He was simply a spy. A traitor to the motherland. There is such a concept - a traitor to the motherland. He was one of those. He's simply a scumbag, that's all."

He reiterated Russia's stance that it has nothing to do with the Novichok poisoning - despite credible reports two Kremlin spooks were behind the attempted hit.

Suspects Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov were identified by the UK as members of the GRU, Russia's military intelligence service.

However, the pair made widely mocked claims that they only made the trip to visit the "wonderful town" of Salisbury and its famous cathedral in a bizarre TV interview.

British online sleuths later identified Boshirov as Anatoliy Vladimirovich Chepiga, a decorated colonel in the GRU.

He was given the Hero of the Russian Federation medal in 2014 - a decoration reportedly handed out by Putin himself, claims the report by Bellingcat.

Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, quickly dismissed the claims, saying they are part of an "information campaign".

Putin today insisted that Skripal was of no interest to the Kremlin since he was tried in Russia and exchanged in a spy swap in 2010.

However, last week we reported claims Skripal was targeted for assassination because he was still an active spy for four Western intelligence agencies - including Britain's MI6.

The 67-year-old supposedly retired Russian double-agent had allegedly betrayed Moscow in Spain, the Czech Republic and Estonia since moving to the Wiltshire town eight years ago.

The final straw for the Kremlin came when he fingered four spooks - including an old colleague - on undercover operations in the Baltic state of Estonia in 2016 and last year.

Revenge-hungry Moscow then sent-in two GRU military intelligence agents disguised as tourists Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov for the bungled nerve agent hit on Skripal.

The claims were made in Germany's respected Focus magazine which quotes a "senior employee of NATO counter-espionage Allied Command Counterintelligence (ACCI)."