The United Kingdom has taken decisive action against Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency, implementing sanctions and calling in Moscow’s ambassador for a formal rebuke. This follows a conclusive inquiry attributing the nerve agent attack on British soil in 2018 directly to President Vladimir Putin.
The incident in question involved Sergei Skripal, a former Russian double agent, and his daughter, Yulia Skripal, who were both critically affected by the nerve agent Novichok in March of that year. The toxic substance had been applied to the front door handle of Skripal’s residence. A British police officer, Nick Bailey, was also exposed to the poison. Fortunately, all three survived the ordeal.
Tragically, the ramifications of the attack extended further. Three months after the initial incident, Dawn Sturgess, a British citizen, and her partner came into contact with a discarded perfume bottle containing the same nerve agent. Sturgess sprayed the substance on her wrist and succumbed to the effects days later, while her partner managed to survive.
Despite these findings, Moscow has persistently denied any involvement in the poisonings. President Putin himself dismissed Sergei Skripal as insignificant, referring to him as “just a scumbag” irrelevant to the Kremlin’s concerns.
The inquiry into the events, led by former UK Supreme Court Justice Anthony Hughes, concluded that the attack on the Skripals had to have been sanctioned at the highest echelons of Russian power, implicating Putin. Justice Hughes described Sturgess as an “innocent victim” caught in an assassination attempt orchestrated by Russian state operatives, employing a lethal nerve agent on the streets of Salisbury.
He concluded that Sturgess was “an innocent victim of an attempt by officers of a Russian state organisation to conduct an assassination on the streets of Salisbury using a highly toxic nerve agent”.
Britain has charged three alleged GRU agents over the attack on the Skripals, but the UK has no extradition agreement with Russia, so there is little prospect of putting them on trial.
Novichok is a class of military-grade nerve agents developed by the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War. Western weapons experts believe it was only ever manufactured in Russia, though Moscow has said that the US, UK and other countries have the expertise to make it.
The UK sanctions announcement also named eight alleged cyber military intelligence officers for working for the GRU. Britain’s Foreign Office said that they targeted Yulia Skripal with malware five years before the Novichok attack.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that Hughes’ findings “are a grave reminder of the Kremlin’s disregard for innocent lives”.
“Dawn’s needless death was a tragedy and will forever be a reminder of Russia’s reckless aggression,” he said.
