The Skripal affair – a history in blogs and the unanswered questions
By Philip Ingram MBE
This post is a library giving introductions and links to the 15 blogs I wrote relating to the Skripal attack.
There remains a number of unanswered questions which we are unlikely to get detail on as this remains an active investigation by Counter Terror Police (CTP) UK. They have released enough information to get formal charges and an INTERPOL Red notice issued against the believed perpetrators, Colonel Dr Alexander Mishkin and Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga of the GRU, the Russian Military Intelligence. CTP UK don’t need to release any other information at this stage
The bigger questions that remain unanswered include:
What evidence is there of a second team that will have carried out a pattern of life study against Sergei Skripal in the days prior to the attack? How were he and his daughter Yulia monitored by Russian Intelligence and does Salisbury have a permanent interest from Russian Military Intelligence?
What were the full movements of Mishkin and Chepiga on the weekend of the attack? Where else did they go in Salisbury, who else did they meet? Why have we not seen more of the CCTV?
What happened to the gloves and other potential PPE Mishkin and Chepiga will have worn as they deployed the Novichok on Sergei Skripal’s front door? What has that never been found and what is the real story surrounding the perfume bottle found by Charlie Rowley? Why was the potential clear and present danger not highlighted at the time?
Blog links are in chronological order:
07/08 March 2018
Sergei Skripal – was it an assassination?
As someone who commanded an intelligence unit with a capability for the covert surveillance of Russian intelligence operations, I think I am qualified to do some analysis of detail that is coming out from the reporting of the Sergei Skripal incident.
The reporting around how Sergei and Yulia Skripal were poisoned and how Det Sgt Nick Bailey came to get sufficient exposure to make him very seriously ill with another 20 or 21 casualties have to be treated for potential contamination raises a number of questions. The reason is, classic nerve agents, even thickened ones are not designed to be slow acting, they are designed to incapacitate first and foremost overwhelming evacuation and medical facilities, sending a clear psychological message to anyone operating in the area where chemical weapons are used.
Новичок – Novichok what do we know and what do we not know?
Prime Minister Teresa May confirming the agent used in the assassination attempt on Sergei and Yulia Skripal, that put Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey in intensive care and contaminated a number of other people as Novichok, has clarified some of what the country speculated and raised a whole new set of questions; not least of which is what is Novichock? What do we know about it and more importantly what do we not know about it?
Novichock, what response would be appropriate for Russia?
With the Russians having failed to respond to Prime Minister Teresa Mays deadline to answer the simple question of “how this nerve agent came to be used” relating to the use of military grade Novichock in an attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal that put Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey in intensive care on Sunday 8th March in Salisbury. How should she respond, what are her options, can she really punish Putin and Russia?
As support from around the world grows for Prime Minister Teresa Mays stance on what she refers to as the “unlawful use of force” by the Russians on UK soil, with the poisoning of the former Russian intelligence officer, Sergei Skripal, his daughter Yulia and Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey on the streets of Salisbury using a “military grade nerve agent” Novichok, questions remain.
The assassination attempts on Sergei and Yulia Skripal on 4th March has left the world reeling in horror at the first use of a nerve agent in Europe, never mind one Teresa May described as a ‘military grade Novichok’ agent when she firmly pointed the UK finger at Russia. But is there more to Salisbury than meets the eye? Is it a Russian spooks playground?
When Teresa May said in Parliament, “It is now clear that Mr Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia. This is part of a group of nerve agents known as ‘Novichok’.” Fingers were pointed at Russia as they have a history of using novel methods to assassinate people, Alexander Litvinenko is a case in point, it sends a message.
Novichok and Salisbury – a British Military failure
It should have been a strategic gift, an assassination attempt using an agent that as we have heard from Gary Aitkenhead, the chief executive of the MoD, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), said was a military-grade novichok nerve agent, which could probably be deployed only by a nation-state. Instead, we are being led a merry dance in information terms regarding the burden of proof and apportionment of blame.
As someone who commanded an intelligence unit with a capability for the covert surveillance of Russian intelligence operations, has studied organic chemistry related to defence against chemical and biological weapons at both degree and master’s degree level, I think I am qualified to do some analysis of detail that is coming out from the reporting of the Sergei and Yulia Skripal and subsequent incidents in Salisbury.
I have been talking to a number of press outlets regarding how the detritus from the Skripal attack could have come to be in a position to contaminate and kill Dawn Sturgess and put her partner Charlie Rowley into intensive care in Salisbury District Hospital.
It is not every day that a quiet little English city is caught in the grips of a story that would be a page-turner in any spy novel, where the readers would be sceptical that what was being written about could actually happen. Well, it did, with the tragic death of Dawn Sturgess and the hospitalisation of Charlie Rowley, Nick Bailey, Yulia Skripal and her father, the intended target of a nerve agent attack, former Russian GRU Colonel, Sergei Skripal.
At one-minute past midnight on 4thOctober 2018 a statement came out from the British Government saying that the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) had “identified that a number of cyber actors widely known to have been conducting cyber-attacks around the world are, in fact, the GRU.”
It is now a year since Colonel Dr Alexander Mishkin and Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga, traveling under the false identities of Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, both members of the Russian Military Intelligence Service, the GRU, entered Britain through Gatwick airport. They had a deadly intent, kill the double agent who was living in the sleepy city of Salisbury, Sergei Skripal, using the deadly nerve agent Novichok.
On Saturday The Guardian Newspaper published a story which said: “The Russian men suspected of poisoning Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury received a phone call after returning to London on the day of the alleged attack, raising the possibility that a backup team played a role in the operation.
Note: These blogs were written by Philip Ingram MBE, a former British Army Intelligence Officer and Chemical Weapons Expert who was based near Salisbury in the past. If you would like any further comment from Philip, please contact him by clicking HERE
Power Outages – An attack on our Critical National Infrastructure?
****Updated 1855 hrs***** -Additional Assessment at the end.
****Further Updated 10 Aug 0845*****
What I am writing is purely speculative, it is one theory and will be described by some as a bit wacky, I have no problems with that because I hope it is, but it is an informed theory, informed by years of analysis and training that gut feeling. It has been informed by watching for unusual patterns and if they happen look for the most suspicious whilst hoping for the simple in explanations.
Listing only a few recent events we have had unexpected drone interference at Gatwick in December closing the airport for 36 hours, an unexplained Russian Flag draped over the scaffolding on Salisbury Cathedral and unexplained cyber-attack on Gatwick at the time of the drone incident.
More recently, in the past few days we have seen the baggage handling system at Heathrow Airport fail through IT issues, the BA checking in system fail through IT issues, signals out of Euston Station fail and now power outages across parts of the UK when there are no conditions that would cause a user surge demand.
We have the beginnings of a pattern and that pattern is disruption of elements of the UKs national infrastructure, its critical national infrastructure with its transport networks. We have had airports disrupted, airlines disrupted, rail networks disrupted and with the traffic light systems in London suffering, now our roads disrupted.
It is very easy to shrug these incidents in isolation off and but look at them together and plot them out a pattern emerges. I have spoken with the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) part of the governments spy agency GCHQ and they stated that, “The Heathrow Baggage, BA check in and Euston signalling issues were not as they are aware caused by cyber incidents.”
However, this-evenings power cuts have affected airports, traffic lights and the railway network leaving some without electricity.
UK Power Networks tweeted on Friday evening: ‘We’re aware of a power cut affecting large parts of London and South East. We believe this is due to a failure on National Grid’s network, which is affecting our customers.’
Having spoken again to the NCSC, their press office was frantically busy at 6pm on a Friday! Another potential indicator. I will keep this blog updated as new information is received.
However, I do believe there is evidence in some of these incidents of deliberate hostile or rogue state action in the UK. The most recent state openly blamed for an incident in the UK was Russia for its use of Novichok nerve agent in Salisbury last year.
(New) The latest power outage incident has been assessed by the NCSC as not Cyber related, but the question remains how vulnerable is our CNI if it is creaking to this degree through other reasons? Comment: It is probable that this incident isn’t cyber related but on the other hand if it were and the Government wanted to keep it quiet from the public, the NCSC statement would be as issues. However, it is too easy to be overly machiavellian. Comment Ends.
(New 2) Now that the power is back on the power regulator Ofgem has asked for an “urgent details report” to find out what went wrong. Last night Julian Leslie, Head of National Control at National Grid ESO did a quick Twitter Vlog to try and explain what happened. However, all he said was how when two generators (power company speak for whole power stations!) went off line simultaneously the ” system protected itself by losing some demand,” the grid did what it should do and shut parts of itself down. He made no comment on what caused two completely different, geographically separated powers stations to fail at exactly the same time. All of the official commentary avoids that question. In addition the two “generators” were brought back online relatively quickly suggesting this wasn’t a mechanical failure but electronic or control.
We have to look at a few issues here to keep what I admit freely is an unlikely scenario alive, but the questions still have to be asked. Would a hostile state actor have the capability and the intent and with that why?
In June the BBC reported, “Russia has said it is “possible” that its electrical grid is under cyber-attack by the US. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said reports that US cyber-soldiers had put computer viruses on its electrical grid was a “hypothetical possibility”. His comments came in response to a New York Times (NYT) story which claimed US military hackers were targeting Russian power plants.“
That same month Wired reported, “Over the past several months, security analysts at the Electric Information Sharing and Analysis Center (E-ISAC) and the critical-infrastructure security firm Dragos have been tracking a group of sophisticated hackers carrying out broad scans of dozens of US power grid targets, apparently looking for entry points into their networks.” Those sophisticated hackers were linked to the Russian Government.
So a ‘hostile’ state has the capability and seemingly the intent to carry out action in the UK (the Skripal attack and I personally suspect Gatwick disruption). Why now? We are in a period of political turmoil with a new Prime Minister with a majority of only one in Parliament, the looming no deal BREXIT anxiety and a very left leaning opposition and a country still smarting over its outing for the Skripal attack. So why not? It is a Russian tactic to “stir the pot”. The 2007 Cyber attacks by Russia shutting Estonia down for a protracted period are a perfect example and there have been many more since.
So, it is important to ask wast it a hostile state? Even though the probable answer is no. The real positive that came out of this is if it were a hostile state action, it was defeated very quickly and normality restored so our defensive processes clicked in quickly. But that is only a positive if it were a cyber attack.
Note: This blog is written by Philip Ingram MBE, a former British Military Intelligence Officer and now journalist who has served in the Gulf. If you would like any further comment from Philip, please contact him by clicking HERE
Finally a bonus – a Tin Foil Hat Podcast done with The People Hacker – Jenny Radcliffe:
With the latest embarrassment linked to Porton Down Philip Ingram MBE asks, the document find, was it the GRU?
At one-minute past midnight on 4thOctober 2018 a statement came out from the British Government saying that the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) had “identified that a number of cyber actors widely known to have been conducting cyber-attacks around the world are, in fact, the GRU.”
The GRU is the Russian Military Intelligence organisation also known as the Main Intelligence Directorate who have been accused of being responsible for the assassination attempt on Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in March last year and causing the death of Dawn Sturgess.
Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga and Colonel Dr Alexander Mishkin had flown into Gatwick on 02 March and out of Heathrow on 04 March 2018, having been seen in Salisbury on Saturday 03 and again on Sunday 04 March when Sergei Skripal was contaminated by Novichok being placed on the handle of the front door of his house.
Sergey Naryshkin, the head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence the SVR said in October,“Even if one assumes that some secret service was really given such a mission, the way it handled this case was very unprofessional.” Philip Ingram MBE a former Colonel in British Military Intelligence believes rather that his statement being a Russian denial of Salisbury, it was a swipe at the GRU. “There is no love lost between the GRU and the SVR especially when it comes to competing for resources and influence,” Ingram said.
Then in November 2018 Victor Korobov, the head of the GRU died at the age of 62 supposedly after a “long and difficult illness.” He had been on sick leave ever since a dressing down by President Putin after the expose of GRU activities in Salisbury, outside the OPCW in the NL and the Bellingcat revelations of wider GRU activities.
The one thing that clearly comes out of this is the GRU were bruised, bruised operationally and their ego was deflated. As an organisation they had something to prove, that something was they could still operate.
Since then we have heard of Wiltshire Council computers suffering a cyber attack (The GRU operate Russia’s cyber capability), Gatwick Airport suffered a cyber attack, a mysterious and large Russian flag was unveiled on scaffolding on Salisbury Cathedral, Gatwick Airport was closed for 36 hrs through drone incursions which both Philip Ingram and Sir Gerald Howarth, David Cameron’s international security minister, assessed could have been done by the Russians and now we have classified documents relating to staff at Porton Down being found in a recycling bin in North London.
One thing an intelligence professional will look for is a pattern, and there is a very clear pattern of activity aimed at embarrassing Wilts council and the people of Salisbury, Gatwick who had pictures of the GRU team arriving, Porton Down and through to all the UK Government. That pattern of activity points towards an intent.
The second question an intelligence professional asks is if they have the capability. That is easier to confirm. The GRU are responsible for Russia’s national cyber capability. The Bellingcat investigations have exposed their global travel carrying out operations. Philip Ingram believes even Salisbury will have a longer term focus as he highlighted in his blog https://greyharemedia.com/salisbury-sleepy-hollow-or-spooks-playground/.
Putting all of this together we have a strong possibility that the documents discovered by an individual in a recycling bin, reportedly from or related to Porton Down and passed to a national newspaper and not the police, were compromised and put there by a GRU team to embarrass Porton Down. Ingram’s spooks paradise blog looks even more credible!
Note: This blog is written by Philip Ingram MBE, a former British Army Intelligence Offficer who was based near Salisbury in the past. If you would like any further comment from Philip, please contact him by clicking HERE
At one-minute past midnight on 4thOctober 2018 a statement came out from the British Government saying that the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) had “identified that a number of cyber actors widely known to have been conducting cyber-attacks around the world are, in fact, the GRU.”
The GRU is the Russian Military Intelligence organisation also known as the Main Intelligence Directorate who have been accused of being responsible for the assassination attempt on Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in March this year.
Since then, the British Prime Minister Teresa May has openly accused the GRU of their involvement in the attack, saying the two attackers, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov had flown into Gatwick on 02 March and out of Heathrow on 04 March and these names were almost certainly pseudonyms.
The investigative journalism website Bellingcat went on to expose the real identity of the man who travelled under the name Ruslan Boshirov as Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga, a highly decorated GRU Officer who had received the Hero of the Russian Federation award in 2014.
In what Philip Ingram MBE a former British Colonel in British Military Intelligence believes is a swipe at the GRU the head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergey Naryshkin, when he said the Salisbury attack was “unprofessionally done.”
Almost sensing the GRU is ‘on the ropes’, openly outed for the Skripal attack, embarrassed by the ease with which investigative journalists with Bellingcat managed to expose serious flaws in the administration of their secret agents and expose the real identity of one of their highly decorated agents, linking him to Salisbury, for the first time, the UK authorities have come out fighting.
What is the GRU accused of this time?
The NCSC has attributed a number of recent attacks to the GRU. The October 2017, BadRabbit ransomware attack encrypted hard drives and rendered IT inoperable. This caused disruption including to the Kyiv metro, Odessa airport, but was almost an own goal as it also caused disruption at Russia’s central bank and two Russian media outlets. NCSC assess with high confidence that the GRU was almost certainly responsible.
In August 2017, confidential medical files relating to a number of international athletes, including the cyclist Sir Bradley Wiggins were released. WADA stated publicly that this data came from a hack of its Anti-Doping Administration and Management system. NCSC assess with high confidence that the GRU was almost certainly responsible.
In 2016, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) was hacked and documents were subsequently published online. NCSC assess with high confidence that the GRU was almost certainly responsible.
Of interest in July 2018 the team of special investigator Robert Mueller named 12 apparent GRU officers over the alleged hacking and leaking of Democratic party emails.
Between July and August 2015, multiple email accounts belonging to a small UK-based TV station were accessed and content stolen. NCSC assess with high confidence that the GRU was almost certainly responsible.
This is not the first time the GRU has been accused.
In June 2017 a destructive cyber attack targeted the Ukrainian financial, energy and government sectors but spread further affecting other European and Russian businesses. The UK Government attributed this attack to the GRU in February 2018. NCSC assess with high confidence that the GRU was almost certainly responsible.
In October 2017, VPNFILTER malware infected thousands of home and small business routers and network devices worldwide. The infection potentially allowed attackers to control infected devices, render them inoperable and intercept or block network traffic
In April 2018, the NCSC, FBI and Department for Homeland Security issued a joint Technical Alert about this activity by Russian state-sponsored actors.
The Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt said:
“These cyber attacks serve no legitimate national security interest, instead impacting the ability of people around the world to go about their daily lives free from interference, and even their ability to enjoy sport.
“The GRU’s actions are reckless and indiscriminate: they try to undermine and interfere in elections in other countries; they are even prepared to damage Russian companies and Russian citizens. This pattern of behaviour demonstrates their desire to operate without regard to international law or established norms and to do so with a feeling of impunity and without consequences.
“Our message is clear: together with our allies, we will expose and respond to the GRU’s attempts to undermine international stability.”
The UK is not alone with accusing the GRU and last night the Australians came out to support the UK statement. Of note, the Australians are part of the 5 eyes community. This is an intelligence-sharing community of the US, UK, Canadians, Australians and New Zealand.
Timing is of interest as it is almost certainly a swipe at President Putin, waning him off interfering with the US midterm elections due on 6thNovember 2018.
The UK Prime Minister said in Parliament on 5 September 2018, the UK will work with our allies to shine a light on the activities of the GRU and expose their methods. Her dancing queen speech in Birmingham is turning into her Rocky Balboa attack on the GRU, for the first time she is taking the fight to the Russians.
The announcement this morning by the Major General Onno Eichelsheim from the Dutch MIVD intelligence service regarding the expulsion of 4 GRU agents who were targeting the OPCW in the Netherlands is significant in it shows the international community joining Teresa May in ‘the ring’ helping with the fight against the Russians in an unprecedented way. Of significance, what is being exposed are some very bad ‘drills’ by the GRU operatives and this reinforces Sergey Naryshkin comments that the Skripal attack was ‘unprofessionally done.’
Note: This blog is written by Philip Ingram MBE, a former Colonel in British Military Intelligence, who was based near Salisbury and has assessed Russian activity for many years. If you would like any further comment from Philip, please contact him by clicking HERE
It is not every day that a quiet little English city is caught in the grips of a story that would be a page-turner in any spy novel, where the readers would be sceptical that what was being written about could actually happen. Well, it did, with the tragic death of Dawn Sturgess and the hospitalisation of Charlie Rowley, Nick Bailey, Yulia Skripal and her father, the intended target of a nerve agent attack, former Russian GRU Colonel, Sergei Skripal.
I am someone who has commanded an intelligence unit with a capability to covertly monitor Russian national intelligence operations, has studied organic chemistry and nuclear science related to defence against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons, at both degree and master’s degree level. Having been a military intelligence officer and also a Colonel, I have the experience and knowledge of all aspects of the decision-making process leading up to the attack on Sergei Skripal, how it would be planned, executed and the actions the Russian government has taken since then. It is classic spy story stuff and I am pretty certain my assessments of what happened, why it happened, and more, are accurate.
Having been asked for my opinion on Salisbury by press outlets ranging from Japanese newspapers, to European, Canadian and Australian TV and radio, as well as the usual CNN, BBC, mainstream UK newspapers and bizarrely by several Russian broadcasters, I thought I would put the key points into one blog, bringing together the threads of my previous blogs. Please feel free to scroll back and read them.
Why Sergei Skripal?
The most important point to start with is the reason for the attack on Sergei Skripal. It was not done first and foremost to kill him. If that was the motivation then he would have been shot, stabbed or had a car accident. Sergei Skripal was a vehicle used to send a message to any Putin dissenters across the globe that he could get them anywhere, any time and in a horrible way. Prime Minister May hinted to this in an answer to a question after her statement in the House of Commons on 5thSep 2018.
The second reason was to stir a nationalistic fervour into his Presidential campaign domestically by having a reason to say the west was attacking poor Russia. Remember the attack happened exactly 14 days before the Russian Presidential election and opposition parties and oligarchs were becoming more threatening to Mr Putin’s position and his desire for an increased majority.
Sergei Skripal was chosen because Salisbury in next to DSTL Porton Down, the UK’s chemical defence laboratory and this allowed an element of plausible deniability where President Putin could claim that this was set up to undermine him in the eyes of the international community.
Of note, this is exactly the messaging that came out in the immediate aftermath of the attack. The Russians have a doctrine called маскировка (maskirovka) which is all about ‘masking’ or deception and is central to all they do. The Russian people have an unhealthy belief in conspiracy theories and that the west is out to get them no matter what and this played into President Putin’s domestic messaging.
How did Petrov and Boshirov do what they did?
Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov (almost certainly not their real names) are alleged to have carried out a nerve agent attack in Salisbury in March, which poisoned Sergei and Yulia Skripal and have been charged by the Crown Prosecution Service, resulting in an INTERPOL Red notice being issued alongside a European Arrest Warrant.
Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu from the MET police counter-terrorism unit, said the suspects were in the UK only briefly, flying in from Moscow on Friday 2ndMarch, staying for two nights at the City Stay Hotel on Bow Road in East London, and flew back to Moscow on Sunday 4thMarch, the day they carried out the attack on Sergei Skripal’s house.
The men took a train to Salisbury on Saturday 3rdMarch “for reconnaissance of the Salisbury area.” They then returned the next day to carry out the poisoning. The police said closed-circuit television recordings showed the men near Sergei Skripal’s house and have found minute traces of Novichok in their Bow Road hotel room. It is worth noting that big chunks of their time have not been accounted for.
Prime Minister May firmly stated that the two suspects belonged to the Russian military intelligence organisation, the GRU (or Main Intelligence Directorate). Her choice of words, clearly stating that they were GRU agents, after stating that their names were probably false, strongly suggests that the UK Intelligence agencies know their real identities and therefore links to the GRU.
How would this operation have been planned and executed?
Under a 2006 Russian Federation law, extrajudicial assassinations by agents of the Kremlin need be approved only by the Russian head of state, without reference to others and the GRU will keep an up to date list of those they believe should be targeted including Western spies, political dissenters and others.
Colonel General Igor Valentinovich Korobov, head of the GRU will be no stranger to President Putin, appointed in 2016 by him and made a Hero of the Russian Federation in 2017 he will be a regular advising President Putin on difficult and delicate matters such as Eastern Ukraine, Crimea, Syria and will almost certainly be someone President Putin will use for advice and options in dealing with concerns.
President Putin will have been concerned that his dealing with Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, ensuring his criminal conviction meant he couldn’t run against him, had stirred up further dissent but this time in more powerful and wealthy oligarchs who until then had remained silent. Putin will have asked Korobov to look at options to send dissenters a clear message.
Messaging is a clear tactic used by Russia and the Alexander Litvinenko case will have shown the GRU the wider messaging impact of using novel assassination methods. GRU scientists will have been trialling many different methods of assassination in their labs that resemble those of Q in the James Bond movies, including the use of nerve agents. The use of a Nerve Agent as an assassination method was demonstrated by 2 alleged North Korean women in Kuala Lumpur Airport in 2016 when Kim Jong Nam, half-brother to the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, was assassinated with an agent identified as VX and the assassins remained safe. This methodology could have been Russian inspired as a ‘field trial’ as there are some unexplained links between Russia and North Korea!
Novichok, a more potent, safer to handle, less detectable and more persistent agent than VX, works in the same way. It poisons the nervous systems ‘off’ switch and is absorbed slowly through the skin. Immediate treatment is using Atropine and similar drugs widely available in any hospital A&E. Its slow action and dramatic effect was the perfect choice to send a message that this was from the Russians but with plausible deniability using маскировка (maskirovka) by choosing a target near to a Western chemical defence establishment. Hence why Sergei Skripal came to the fore.
Once he had been identified as the vehicle to be used to send the message, his electronic life will have been hacked as well as that of his daughter Yulia so they could be constantly watched and a pattern of life study carried out. The Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) station in the Russian embassy in London will have been tasked to carry out a reconnaissance of Sergei Skripal to update national records and monitor his movements over at least a week-long period at the end of February. That report will have been passed to the GRU and formed the basis of Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov’s trip to Salisbury on 3rdMarch for them to confirm the detail prior to the assassination attempt trip on 4thMarch.
Prior to flying to the UK, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov will have been practising the application of Novichok to a door handle and the removal of protective gloves with the live agent, they will have been learning how to administer the anti-nerve agent drug, Atropine, to themselves should they become accidentally contaminated. They will have been rehearsing their assassination attempt. They will likely have brought the Novichok, already sealed in the modified fake Nina Ricci ‘Premier Jour’ perfume bottle in a Russian chemical warfare laboratory, into the country in their hand luggage.
Their trip to Salisbury on 3rdMarch will have been to check aspects of the SVR pattern of life study and possibly get briefed by the SVR team themselves. So that they could return alone on 4thMarch and apply the deadly Novichok to Sergei Skripals front door.
After they applied the Novichok they will have removed their protective gloves but accidentally dropped the fake Nina Ricci ‘Premier Jour’ perfume bottle with a specially made poison applicator, as they put it back into its cover. Knowing just how deadly the substance was they left, hoping no one would find it. This act was simply a cock up. Their gloves and other contaminated items will have been put into a bin in Salisbury, taken to landfill by unwitting council workers the next day. It was that accidentally dropped bottle that Charlie Rowley found and took home to his girlfriend Dawn.
Putin and the GRU will have been surprised at the tenacity of the UK’s counter-terror police and Security Services investigation and the level of detail they have managed to ascertain. The public exposure of Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov and the strong indications that the UK Government knows their real identities has forced the Russians into what was an embarrassing interview with the Russian state-funded RT network.
The reason for the interview is not to appease the international community or provide a credible story but it is a standard tactic as part of the маскировка (maskirovka) campaign, this time aimed at the Russian domestic audience who are becoming wary of Putin’s performance. The Russians have a word, враньё(vranyo), which means to tell a lie without expecting to be believed. the lie is told purely to save face knowing they won’t be challenged. This tactic unsurprisingly was common practice in the Soviet era.
What are we missing?
However, there are subtilty’s in the investigation and what has been released and what hasn’t been released that allows what I will caveat as speculation, but argue it is informed speculation.
There has been just enough information, including CCTV stills shown to the general public to back the Crown Prosecution Service charges and the statement by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons. It is almost certain there is a lot more information not yet released.
There will be a lot more CCTV from both the Saturday 3rdMarch and Sun 4thMarch trips that will give a greater insight to Petrov and Boshirov’s movements around Salisbury that hasn’t been released. The police will have made an assessment as to what happened to the protective clothing, as a minimum, pairs of gloves Petrov and Boshirov would have worn to carry out the attack. These will be contaminated.
There is no statement as to where the fake Nina Ricci ‘Premier Jour’ perfume bottle was found by Charlie Rowley and how it remained unaccounted for, for so long. There is no statement to Petrov and Boshirov’s movements in London and how the Bow hotel was identified, or why traces of Novichok from a sealed container would have been found there? There has been no assessment as to the hours unaccounted for on both 3rdand 4thMarch as Petrov and Boshirov walked around Salisbury.
Why is this being kept from us? The basic answer is, we don’t need to know. I would speculate that the SVR team who carried out the pattern of life study on Sergei Skripal have possibly been identified by the UK intelligence agencies and there is a distinct possibility at least one of them lives in the Salisbury area. If that is the case, they will be running an operation to target individuals and turn them to become double agents for the UK. This I know sounds very James Bond like, but is the day to day role of counterintelligence officers in MI5 and Intelligence officers in MI6. I have seen these types of operation.
Who are the GRU?
They are Russia’s military intelligence service and one of three of Russia’s intelligence agencies whose activities often overlap – the others are the Federal Security Services (FSB) and the Foreign Intelligence Services (SVR). The FSB has a broader remit, including counter-terrorism, border control and domestic surveillance, but all the agencies are in competition for resources and funding.
The GRU came back in favour with Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, activities in Eastern Ukraine and in Syria as they own a special forces element called the Spetsnaz. They also have historically been responsible for assassinations, espionage and cyber warfare around the world.
The GRU also have a direct-action special forces capability in their ranks called Spetsnaz GRU. It is individuals from these unite we have almost certainly seen in Crimea, Eastern Ukraine and in Syria.
What is Novichok?
Novichok (новичок meaning “newcomer” or “newbie”) are a series of organophosphate-based nerve agents. They were designed by the Russians in the 1970’s and 80’s as they sought to produce a binary chemical warfare agent whose constituent parts would fall out with the chemicals that were to be banned in the International Probation of Chemical Weapons Convention, that was in its diplomatic infancy at the time.
A binary device consists of two ‘safe’ compounds that when mixed together form the nerve agent but on their own are little or no danger. An organophosphate nerve agent is one that works on attacking the chemical switch inside every nerve cell in your body that turns the nerve cell off after being stimulated. That chemical switch is an enzyme called acetylcholinesterase and nerve agents to destroy the body’s ability to synthesise that enzyme.
Nerve agents fall into 3 persistence categories, non-persistent, eg Sarin (used by Assad in Syria), which has the consistency of petrol and evaporates relatively quickly; persistent agents eg Vx (used to assassinate Kim Jong Nam (Kim Jong Un’s half-brother) in Kuala Lumpur airport last year and has the consistency of engine oil; and very persistent such as Novichok that can be in a solid, powder or treacle level of consistency.
Aside from Sarin, the primary method of absorption for nerve agents into the body is through the skin, so it is unlikely that you would know that you have been contaminated with this the colourless, odourless substance until you start to exhibit symptoms.
The symptoms can build slowly for low exposure or come on rapidly for high dose exposure and include: Runny nose and eyes, small pupils or blurry vision, coughing, chest tightness, wheezing, or shortness of breath, nausea and vomiting, abdominal pain or diarrhoea, fatigue, headache, or sweating, muscle twitching or a seizure, leading to collapse, respiratory failure and death.
Nerve agents are designed to cause casualties first and foremost to overwhelm evacuation and medical facilities on the battlefield and to deny ground through a sort of chemical minefield.
What will happen next?
In reality very little – the sabre rattling will continue, if there is sufficient international support then the only way Putin can be hurt is by freezing the assets of his oligarch supporters and aiding Russian opposition parties; play them at their own game but do it within the international rule of law.
Will it happen? Unlikely, as the Russian influence into western governments is much greater than we realise. The Mueller enquiry in the US will expose some but closer to home the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline providing Russian Gas to Germany shows the economic interdependence that politicians won’t want to destabilise.
President Putin is currently sitting behind his grand desk in Moscow, with a very large glass of the best vodka on ice, stroking a white cat on his knee, knowing he has won yet again.
Note: This blog is written by Philip Ingram MBE, a former British Army Intelligence Officer and Colonel, who was based near Salisbury in the past. If you would like any further comment from Philip, please contact him by clicking HERE
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