According to the BBC, two suspects for the Salisbury Poisonings soon emerged. Shortly before the Novichok attack, two men using the identities of Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov entered the country. They were in Salisbury on March 4 — the day of the poisoning — and boarded a plane back to Russia that same evening. There’s CCTV footage of them moving in the vicinity of Sergei Skripal’s house, too. What’s more, minuscule traces of Novichok were discovered at a hotel room they’d stayed in.  

Investigative outlet Bellingcat later published a pretty thorough article about Boshirov’s true identity, which, according to their research, is Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga, a highly decorated Russian Spetsnaz operative and suspected officer of the Russian GRU intelligence agency. Likewise, Petrov’s real identity is reportedly GRU officer Alexander Mishkin, and per the BBC, the two men have also been linked to another attempted poisoning in Bulgaria, as well as an ammunitions storage explosion in the Czech Republic. 

The two men have been charged with the Salisbury Poisonings in the U.K. (per The Guardian), along with a third Russian, Sergey Fedotov, who was charged in 2021. However, Russia has denied claims of its citizens’ involvement and refused extradition, and in a 2018 interview with Russia’s RT network, the two men themselves stated that they were in Salisbury simply to sightsee and check out the cathedral. British authorities think these men haven’t left Russia since, and they are unlikely to do so.