The European Union sanctioned on Monday the heads of Russia's military intelligence and two of their officers blamed for poisoning a former Russian double agent in Britain last year, a decision Moscow dismissed as groundless.

The Kremlin denied on Thursday that Russia had been in any way involved in the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter, describing British accusations that an attack had been approved by senior Russian officials as "unacceptable".

Yulia Skripal, who was poisoned with a nerve agent in the English city of Salisbury along with her Russian ex-spy father, has been discharged from hospital, an official said Tuesday.

Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal is no longer in a critical condition and his health is improving rapidly, more than a month after he was poisoned with a nerve agent in England, the hospital treating him said on Friday.

Russian diplomats expelled from Britain in the worsening spat over the poisoning of a former double agent left the London embassy on Tuesday with their families in tow.

Russia's Investigative Committee said on Friday it had opened a criminal investigation into the attempted murder of Yulia Skripal, daughter of former double agent Sergei Skripal, and what it said was the attempted murder of another Russian in Britain.

The baseball rolled into Howie Kendrick’s glove, and Scott Kazmir appeared on the verge of a tidy ending to his evening. Kazmir had allowed the New York Mets to score in each of the three innings he pitched on Monday until he found his foot.