How an international assassination attempt brought horror to the streets of a sleepy English city
IIn 2014, Wiltshire’s second largest town received incredible response from corners of the British national press.
“The best cities in the world – Milan, Vienna and… Salisbury?!” out of breath Telegramaspect Mail He claimed “eyebrows will be raised” when the modest city is included in Lonely Planet’s list of the world’s top 10 cities.
Fast forward four years and another high-profile case of the city’s tourism past was emerging on the global stage, albeit in much more tragic and sinister circumstances.
In an instantly infamous appearance on Russian state television, two men named Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov, who claimed to work in the field of sports nutrition, revealed that they had visited the “wonderful” city twice in one weekend to see Stonehenge and the “famous Salisbury Cathedral”, known for its 123-metre spire.
Delayed by light snow, which they said left “a muddy slush everywhere”, the men returned to their dreary London hotel and claimed to be back again the next day.
This time the headlines were global and the credibility was off the charts. “Spies coming in because it’s cold,” he quipped London Economic, Tom Tugendhat, former chairman of Britain’s foreign relations committee, replied: “The idea that the Russians were turned away because of snow is laughable.”
But despite the cynical backlash, the stakes couldn’t be higher. The pair, at the center of a quagmire of geopolitical tensions, were accused of tearing apart lives in this sleepy English township after the first use of a nerve agent in a European city since the Second World War.
The chemical used in an apparent assassination attempt would eventually lead to the death of a British citizen and the traumatic hospitalization of many others.
The public discovery that Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found poisoned and unconscious on a park bench in Salisbury on March 4, 2018, would send shock waves through the international community.
The couple were taken to hospital along with Wiltshire Police Commissioner Nick Bailey, who was severely poisoned after coming to their aid, and when the male victim’s name was sought by police, it turned out he was a former Russian spy.
That evening, MI6 was reported to have become a hive of tension, and emergency responders at Porton Down, the UK’s nearby biological and chemical military research facility, were dispatched to collect samples from the scene.
Their analysis detected A234, a military-grade noviok nerve agent first created by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Describing it as a “jaw-dropping moment”, the government’s lead scientist said: “I experienced a range of emotions, from disbelief to anger. It is one of the most dangerous substances known. It is quite unique in its ability to poison individuals at very low concentrations.”
Skripal, a former member of the GRU, had previously sold Russian secrets to the West, acting as a double agent.
The then 66-year-old had been released in a spy swap eight years before the attack and, like many other Western agents who had also been swapped, felt safe enough to live under his own identity in the UK. He is not thought to have remained active in the intelligence field, nor is there any evidence that Yulia from Moscow followed in his footsteps.
Theresa May’s government, which has presented no public evidence of its own but has listed Boris Johnson as foreign secretary, immediately pointed the finger at Russia and demanded that the Kremlin prove its innocence within 36 hours. Amid warnings echoing promises of weapons of mass destruction ahead of the Iraq War, opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn also demanded the UK provide evidence and was denounced as a traitor in the House of Commons and in the tabloids.
Russia rejected May’s ultimatum and responded that Britain’s threats to punish Moscow would not go unanswered, describing allegations of Russian involvement as a provocation.
Britain, the United States and 22 other Western governments retaliated by expelling more than 100 Russian diplomats; This was a move that would likely seriously harm Russia’s intelligence capabilities. But the damage was likely short-lived, as there was a shift from diplomatic espionage to more technologically capable means.
In the months that followed, British police and intelligence services combed through hours of CCTV footage and eventually identified two suspects who had flown from Moscow to London and visited Salisbury twice in a single weekend.
Police began building cases against the men, known as Boshirov and Petrov on their passports and visas. The case took a major turn with the discovery of the weapon used to disperse the nerve agent – a fake Nina Ricci perfume bottle.
But the discovery was made under tragic circumstances. On 27 June, nearly four months after the initial attack, the discarded bottle was mistakenly picked up by Charlie Rowley, who gifted it to his partner Dawn Sturgess three days later.
Both fell ill the next day in Amesbury. The mother of three children, who applied the substance to her wrists, died days later. Rowley was eventually released from the hospital before being hospitalized again with vision problems and meningitis.
Ms Sturgess said she felt “very, very strange” before finding Mr Rowley lying in the bathroom, “convulsing and foaming at the mouth” within 15 minutes of spraying the substance.
The poison caused Ms Sturgess to have a heart attack and hypoxic brain damage; His condition was described as “non-survivable” when paramedics arrived at the scene.
News of his death came hours after the interior minister said the government had “no current plans” for additional sanctions against Russia following several diplomatic expulsions. But days later the government accused Russia of using Britain’s streets, parks and towns as “poison dumps”; Deputy Assistant Commissioner Dean Haydon, the lead investigator of the Salisbury attack, claimed the perfume bottle probably contained enough novichok to kill thousands of people.
In what was indeed a harrowing time for local residents and especially emergency responders in the area, some paramedics later reported feeling unwell after the two incidents.
A month later, British police charged two Russians with murder; Theresa May continued to claim it was not a “rogue operation” because the Met had given partial evidence. These included CCTV footage showing the couple arriving in Salisbury and traveling to and from Skripal’s home.
It was at this point that the duo became widely vilified on RT; A former British intelligence official would later tell this newspaper that standards in Russian intelligence had deteriorated.
Their true identities, which British intelligence was said to have known, were soon made public, no doubt aided by their worldwide television viewing.
First, investigative site Bellingcat revealed that Boshirov was Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga, recipient of Russia’s highest state award. It was soon revealed that Petrov was Alexander Mishkin, also from the Russian intelligence service GRU.
To this day, the Kremlin strongly denies any wrongdoing and accuses Britain of spreading “Russophobia”. A Levada Center questionnaire In 2018, only 3 percent of 1,600 Russians said they believed Russian forces were behind the attack, while 56 percent said “it could have been anyone.”
However, an attack by Russian intelligence operations would later emerge; these included an attempted cyberattack on the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague, which was about to announce the results of its investigation into the Skripal case.
While the UK’s immediate harsh response to the attack was likely influenced by accusations of weakness it faced following its tentative response to the murder of Russian asylum seeker Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006, critics argued leaders did not go far enough.
An international arrest warrant has been issued for three Russians thought to have been involved in the attack, but it seems unlikely that they will be prosecuted as the Russian constitution does not allow the extradition of citizens.
Then-home secretary Priti Patel ordered the investigation into Ms Sturgess’s death to be turned into a public inquiry in 2021.
The inquiry, chaired by retired High Court judge Lord Hughes of Ombersley, held public hearings between October and December last year.
The court considered whether the UK authorities had taken appropriate precautions to protect Mr Skripal from the attack and whether the poisoning of Ms Sturgess could have been prevented if public warnings had been issued not to collect discarded items.
The Skripals did not give oral evidence during the investigation out of fear for their safety, while Mr Rowley was exempted for health reasons.
England’s former chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies, told the inquest she had nightmares about someone picking up discarded nerve agent after the Skripals were poisoned.
“I remember raising this at at least one meeting and being assured that the police were looking for a discarded bottle,” he said.
“This then led me to publicly say that no one should pick up something they haven’t dropped.”
In his closing submission to the inquest, Michael Mansfield KC, who is also representing Ms Sturgess’ family, said the poisonings were a result of the UK government’s “egregious failure” to protect the public.
