Reuters
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Russian President Vladimir Putin must have ordered the Novichok nerve agent attack on Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in 2018 in a “reckless” show of power that led to the death of an innocent woman, a British public inquiry concluded on Thursday.
Skripal was found unconscious with his daughter Yulia on a public bench in Salisbury, southern England, in March 2018 after Novichok was applied to the front door handle of a nearby home.
About four months later, mother-of-three Dawn Sturgess, 44, died of poison exposure after her partner discovered a fake perfume bottle used by Russian spies to smuggle military-grade nerve agents into the country, the inquest said.
The Skripals and a police officer who visited their home were left in critical condition as a result of the attack, but have since recovered.
Chairman Anthony Hughes, a former British Supreme Court judge, said in his conclusions that it was certain that a team of GRU military intelligence officers sold Russian secrets to Britain and tried to kill Mr Skripal, who moved to Britain after a 2010 spy swap.
“We conclude that the operation to assassinate Sergei Skripal must have been approved at the highest levels by President Putin,” Hughes said in his report.
“The evidence that this was an attack by the Russian state is overwhelming.”
Russia has always denied involvement and denounced the accusations as anti-Russian propaganda. The Russian embassy in London did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr Hughes said the two Russians who had smeared Novichok on the Skripals’ front door had disposed of the vials containing the poison, regardless of the danger it posed to innocent people.
The investigation reported that the contaminated perfume bottles contained enough poison to kill thousands of people.
These “stunningly reckless” actions meant that the would-be assassin, GRU superiors and those who authorized the attack, down to President Putin himself, held moral responsibility for Sturges’ death, Hughes said.
British police have already charged three people believed to be members of a Russian hit team in absentia.
On Thursday, the government announced new sanctions against the GRU intelligence agency and summoned the Russian ambassador, citing Moscow’s “ongoing hostile activities.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a statement: “Britain will always stand up to President Putin’s brutal regime and condemn his killing machine for what it is.”
The Salisbury incident sparked the biggest East-West diplomatic exile since the Cold War, and relations between Moscow and London have further deteriorated since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, with Britain providing Kiev with significant military aid.
Two of the Russians accused by Britain of carrying out the poisoning later appeared on Russian television and denied any involvement, saying they were innocent tourists visiting the city’s cathedral. All three deny any involvement.
Hughes cited Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and the downing of a Malaysian Airlines plane, saying Russia was “increasing its risk appetite” and said the attack was expected to be a clear demonstration of Russia’s power.
“Russia’s attack on Sergei Skripal was clearly not intended as a simple retaliation against him, but amounted to a public statement of international and domestic consumption that Russia will act decisively in what it considers its interests,” the report said.
President Putin had previously denounced Mr. Skripal as a traitor, but said the investigation had found nothing to suggest the double agent was in immediate danger or that more could have been done to protect Mr. Skripal.
Thursday’s report is the second major investigation to condemn attacks on British soil against people seen as Putin’s adversaries.
A 2016 investigation concluded that Putin ordered the London killing of Russian dissident and former FSB security service officer Alexander Litvinenko, possibly using radioactive polonium-210.
