by Grey Hare Editor | Jun 18, 2020 | Articles
The Salisbury Poisonings – an informed opinion
The BBC Drama that has had over 7 million viewers, The Salisbury Poisonings, was a emotional look back at yet another unprecedented incident, the first use of the deadly nerve agent Novichok anywhere in the world, never mind on the streets of Salisbury, a sleepy hollow nicknamed ‘Smallsbury’ because of its village feel but made famous through its now infamous 142 m spire.
A difficult story to tell in a drama because there were and are so many moving components. We have to remember the incident is still subject to an active murder investigation after the death of Dawn Sturgess, having sprayed herself with what she and her boyfriend Charlie Rowley thought was perfume. In reality it was Novichok from a container discarded by the pair of would be assassins, Colonel Dr Alexander Mishkin and Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga of the GRU, the Russian Military Intelligence.
The drama focused on the human stories behind The Director of Wiltshire’s Public Health, Tracy Daszkiewicz, Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey, one of the early responders, and Dawn Sturgess, rather than the incident, the actual response, the investigation and the unresolved issues. It was a powerful piece of television especially considering the potential impact on many of these involved who are still coming to terms with what was a life changing event.
A clearly deliberate move gave the series a direction that people not familiar with the story could relate to and in a very emotionally charged way, it highlighted many of the stresses and strains of the time. It gave a personality to Dawn Sturgess, who in press reporting at the time had her as a person clouded by many of the daemons she was battling but never gave her that personality. It also showed the stress on the Bailey family and the impact of having their lives turned upside down. It tried to highlight the complexity Tracy Daszkiewicz had to face when coordinating a large multi-agency response but missed elements of that to concentrate on her personal journey.
For the informed as with any drama there will be frustrations, I am sure A&E consultants and staff cringe at Casualty when it is on, but still find it entertaining, so these observations are meant in that vein. I don’t think the initial paramedic and A&E response was portrayed as well as it could and the scenes in the hospital at times were a little wooden, as was the portrayal of Porton Down; but these were not central to the plot, the people were.
I was frustrated at the lack of trying to further interpret many of the unanswered questions, but that frustration is tempered by the fact is it still an ongoing and active murder investigation, so that speculation couldn’t have happened in any detail and wouldn’t have added to the people element of the story.
Some of the questions to my mind that remain unanswered include;
Why the public were not warned about a clear and present danger remaining, I had reported the probability to CT Police, written a detailed blog about it and had a story about it published in the Sunday Papers on 15thMarch as well as having commented on it on many radio and TV interviews?
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? Why has that never been found and what is the real story surrounding the perfume bottle found by Charlie Rowley? Why has there not been a definitive statement about any potential remaining threat?
In all a very good series and well put together. However, I have to ask if it was too soon after the incident? Only Tracy, Nick and Dawns family can answer that. I feel it has reopened many of the questions I have highlighted above and think there should be a more documentary style look back at the whole, unprecedented event soon. I would go further and ask more about the Russian influence in the UK, their intelligence operations and if they have a particular continual interest in Salisbury and its surrounds?
A link to my collated blogs from the time is here: https://greyharemedia.com/the-skripal-affair-a-history-in-blogs/ – if you would like any further comment from Philip, please contact him by clicking HERE
by Grey Hare Editor | Jun 15, 2020 | Articles
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.
https://greyharemedia.com/sergei-skripal-assassination/
11 March 2018
Sergei and Yulia Skripal – additional assessment
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.
https://greyharemedia.com/sergei-and-yulia-skripal-assassination-attempt-further-comment/
13 March 2018
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?
https://greyharemedia.com/novichok-what-do-we-know/
14 March 2018
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?
https://greyharemedia.com/what-response-would-be-appropriate-for-russia/
15 March 2018
Is there a continuing clear and present danger?
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.
https://greyharemedia.com/clear-and-present-danger/
26 March 2018
Salisbury, sleepy hollow or spooks playground?
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?
https://greyharemedia.com/salisbury-sleepy-hollow-or-spooks-playground/
28 March 2018
Skripal poisoning, it was on the door
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.
https://greyharemedia.com/skripal-poisoning-it-was-on-the-door/
11 April 2018
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.
https://greyharemedia.com/a-british-military-failure/
07 July 2018
Salisbury and Novichok the truth and myth
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.
https://greyharemedia.com/salisbury-and-novichok-the-truth-and-myth/
09 July 2018
How did Dawn and Charlie get contaminated?
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.
https://greyharemedia.com/how-did-dawn-and-charlie-get-contaminated-in-salisbury/
15 September 2018
GRU and Salisbury, a more complete account.
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.
https://greyharemedia.com/gru-and-salisbury-a-more-complete-account/
04 October 2018
The GRU is on the Ropes
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.”
https://greyharemedia.com/the-gru-is-on-the-ropes/
07 November 2018
The Skripal Files by Mark Urban, a review by Philip Ingram MBE
https://greyharemedia.com/the-skripal-files/
02 March 2019
Skripal and Salisbury an infamous combination
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.
https://greyharemedia.com/skripal-and-salisbury-an-infamous-combination-one-year-on/
20 May 2019
The Skripal Investigation, the next revelation.
The Skripal Investigation, the next revelation.
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.
https://greyharemedia.com/skripal-the-next-revelation/
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
by Grey Hare Editor | May 20, 2019 | Articles
The Skripal Investigation, the next revelation.
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.
One theory being considered by investigators is whether the call, which has not been disclosed before, was a signal to tip them off that the operation had been a success.”
So, what does this mean, how significant is it and is there more we can deduce from this new snippet released by the Metropolitan Police?
It gives an understanding to more detail that could be out there, and yes, it is very significant, so lots more can be deduced! Philip Ingram MBE a former British Military Intelligence Officer explains some of the things that the investigators will have and what this means.
The first thing that this statement confirms is the probable existence of a second team. This is something that the Grey Hare Media team have been saying over and over again in the numerous Skripal related Grey Hare Blogs, the last of which is here: https://greyharemedia.com/skripal-and-salisbury-an-infamous-combination-one-year-on/
What it does suggest is that the second team (and there could even have been a third) were there during the operation carried out by Chepiga and Mishkin and remained there afterwards. They were providing overwatch and checking to see if the operation was a success. Although it is a bit of a speculative jump, there is a possibility they are part of a clandestine Russian unit permanently in the Salisbury area (suggested here: https://greyharemedia.com/salisbury-sleepy-hollow-or-spooks-playground/). However, it is unlikely that anyone involved in deep cover operations would get involved in something so dynamic, unless resources were scarce.
It could also explain the ‘sealed’ bottle of Novichok that Charlie Rowley found some time later. There could have been a second bottle left as a back-up in case the first attempt failed.
The next thing it confirms is that Chepiga and Mishkin has a phone they used on the operation. This is almost certainly a UK pay as you go, unregistered “burner” phone and the fact they received a “phone call”, rather than a call being made over a secure App such as Threema or WhatsApp, would suggest the phone wasn’t a smart phone. This would make sense as smart phones, with their built in GPS capabilities, are much easier to track once identified.
So how would they have identified the phone? Well, all phones operate using a SIM card and each SIM card has a unique International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) number which consists of the users account number, network code and telephone number. There is a second number, and this is the International Mobile Equipment Identity, (IMEI) number that relates to the handset and remains the same even if the SIM is changed.
When mobile phones are switched on, they transmit these numbers to local phone cells to “check in” and do the same each time they make a call. The mobile network is divided into a series of cells with a base station at the centre of each cell and they can hand calls across to each other, giving seamless coverage to the user.
If the police have identified a call being made it means they almost certainly know the IMSI and IMEI numbers linked to that call and to all other calls to and from that handset or SIM. The GRU network will have likely been identified.
The police will have been looking at base station activity corresponding with the times Chepiga and Mishkin were on their train journeys, in Salisbury, other travel rotes they will have taken in London and near their accommodation in London to see if they could identify on IMEI or IMSI number that was consistent and ideally both. The huge amounts of data they will have had to crunch through to do this is unimaginable but shows the effort that is being put in to the Skripal Investigation. It is highly probable that the computing power of the government listening agency, GCHQ will have been used for this part of the investigation.
With this information, a more detailed understanding of the movements of the GRU officers and any associates who they have communicated with can be deduced if the phones and SIMs have been connected to the network more than one time only.
With this level of detail going into the investigation, there is a lot more yet to be exposed.
Note: This blog is written by Philip Ingram MBE, a former British Military 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
by Grey Hare Editor | Mar 2, 2019 | Articles
Skripal and Salisbury an infamous combination
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.
Their mission was a simple one but had been carefully planned. Sergei Skripal’s daughter Yulia was landing at Heathrow airport to visit her father and be with him on what would have been her late brother Alexander’s birthday. Her emails and probably her phone, were being monitored by Russian intelligence and they would have known her arrangements in detail.
After checking into a cheap East End of London hotel Mishkin and Chepiga waited until the next morning to take the train to Salisbury from Waterloo, to carry out a final ‘close target recce’ of Sergei Skripal’s house in Christie Millar Road.
Their detailed movements in Salisbury that day have not been revealed completely but it is probably that, in their possession they had a detailed ‘pattern of life’ study on Sergei Skripal, possibly delivered to their hotel, so they knew his normal routine. They knew he left his house through the front door, not the side or back door, they knew he pulled it shut by the handle, not the door frame, they knew everything about him because others will have spent time watching him closely, studying his movements, reading his emails, listening into his phone conversations.
Mishkin and Chepiga’s trip to Salisbury on Saturday 3rdMarch 2018 would be to confirm the route to take to Sergei Skripal’s house from Salisbury Station, look for signs of him being watched by British Intelligence, confirm their escape plan and possibly meet with at least one member of the team that carried out the ‘pattern of life study,’ before returning to London.
Early on Sunday 4thMarch, Mishkin and Chepiga return to Salisbury with a fake Nina Ricci Premier Jour perfume bottle filled with deadly Novichok in Russia having replaced the cap with a special applicator that morning. On arrival in Salisbury they quickly retrace the route they checked out the day before and approached Sergei Skripals house to smear the deadly agent onto his front door.
Whilst it is possible it was dispensed directly from the modified perfume bottle the danger of ‘splash back’ would have meant putting it onto a wipe and smearing that onto the door handle would be safer; we don’t know if this is what they did. Both Mishkin and Chepiga will have been wearing protective gloves and it is probable that Mishkin carried self-injecting epi pens filled with a nerve agent antidote, atropine, just in case anything went wrong.
This is where their movements become a bit of a blur. At some point they will have taken their contaminated gloves off and disposed of them, that is probably the point they dropped the fake Nina Ricci Premier Jour perfume bottle and exactly where all of this happened is not known publicly yet, neither are the details of their movements around Salisbury before catching the train back to London and then to Heathrow. How and where they disposed of their contaminated gloves has never been mentioned and the fate of the fake Nina Ricci Premier Jour perfume is too well known when Charlie Rowley gave it to his girlfriend Dawn Sturgess on 30thJune 2018 and she sprayed its contents onto her skin, exposing herself to a lethal dose of Novichok.
Just after the attack on 15thMarch 2018, I asked the MET police who had taken over the investigation, what had happened to the items the ‘would be’ assassins had used and was met with silence, I published my concerns here: https://greyharemedia.com/clear-and-present-danger/and in the Sunday papers. Statements from Public Health England said the risk to the public was very low, Dawn Sturgess paid with her life months later.
The detail of where Charlie Rowley found the contaminated perfume bottle and when he found it are unclear. It is distinctly possible he found it in early March and put it in his bag, forgetting it was there until he unpacked after moving into new accommodation from a homeless shelter in June.
I now repeat my question, what happed to the gloves they will have worn? I suspect they were put in a local bin and the next day taken by the council to landfill so are now safely disposed of, but no one has said.
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, it was assumed, given the deadly nature of Novichok, that he would die. However, if that were the sole 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.
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 Mishkin and Chepiga by the investigative website Bellingcat will have severely embarrassed the GRU.
Sergei and Yulia Skripal will now be under the protection of MI5 and being held safely out of the public eye. They will be receiving further medical support for their physical and mental symptoms. Their futures will be being discussed with them and they are an integral part of any and all decisions about what happens next. For Yulia, a complete innocent who had a bright career and future, it must be particularly hard.
What are we missing?
We are missing detail what the police believe happened to other contaminated items, we are missing detail around the movements of Mishkin and Chepiga around Salisbury, very little footage from the city’s new £450,000 public space CCTV has been released, we are missing details of the team that will have carried out the pattern of life study, we are missing details of what Mishkin and Chepiga did in London.
However, we have to remember there is a politically sensitive, highly complex live murder investigation ongoing, so it is unlikely much of this detail will be released because we don’t need to know. A comment on the contaminated detritus to build further public confidence would be good however.
We have to recognise the huge effort the police, security service, ambulance, fire and rescue, NHS, military personnel, DSTL scientists, civilian security staff and council workers have put in to deal with every aspect of this ongoing spy story. If it were not for their professionalism and coordinated effort there would almost certainly be more deaths and much longer lasting consequences for Salisbury and its surrounds.
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
by Grey Hare Editor | Nov 7, 2018 | Articles
The Skripal Files by Mark Urban, a review by Philip Ingram MBE
I am an intelligence and counter intelligence expert and have commanded a unit which had a specialist capability trained and deployed to monitor Russian (KGB and GRU) activities as well as others. I know how the Russian intelligence agencies work and have been fortunate to speak with former Russian Intelligence Officers who have defected to the West. I too was a Colonel in Military Intelligence, but British Military Intelligence.
I am also for my sins a CBRN expert having studied chemical defence at degree and masters level. Since the 4th March I have been writing in my blog about the Skripal incident, commenting in the national and international press in all its formats, print, radio and TV on what was going on and my assessment.
I was the first to directly blame the Russian, the first to suggest a thickened Nerve Agent, one of the first to suggest Novichok and the lone voice until Teresa May said it in Parliament and Mark Urban mentioned it in this outstanding book, that said the attack on Sergei Skripal was to send a message.
What Mark Urban has done which is unique is to bring Sergei Skripals character, history and thinking to life because he spent time with him, I never met him, but I feel I know him a little better. Mark has been careful to outline fact and caveat assessment – he makes a call on what probably happened at times, but this is the real world and is how real-world intelligence works and he clearly distinguishes where he has made an assessment.
The Skripal files bring to life in such a realistic way how undeclared intelligence officers operate around the world, no matter what country they are from. His description of the research process and recruitment processes are very accurate, his analysis of the motivations that turned Sergei, fit with what was going on at the time and his description of wider case management is spot on. I have a distinct feeling I know some of the characters he has described, and some quite well.
What is fascinating is the interplay between different spy rings and how easy it is for an agent to be compromised and what happened after Sergei was arrested in a gem of an insight. It would have broken most mortals, and this shows the real strength of character Sergei must have.
I can see the accuracy and analysis in this book has struck a raw nerve with some and Marks description of the Information War is not turning into some ‘individuals’ reviewing his book very negatively. That there is an information war being raged against him and is a sign of how embarrassed the GRU and Russian intelligence organisations are.
Simply put, I can’t recommend this book more highly – my only disappointment is he had a publishing deadline as there is much more to this story that has yet to come, but I can look forward to the sequel.
Note: This review 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
To buy this fantastic book from Amazon Click HERE: THE SKRIPAL FILES
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