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Russian President Vladimir Putin is “morally responsible” for the death of a British woman who died after spraying herself with the Novichok nerve agent that had been smuggled into the UK by Russian agents sent to assassinate a former spy, an inquiry has concluded.
Inquiry chair Lord Hughes of Ombersley said on Thursday the assassination attempt on former agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in March 2018 “must have been authorised at the highest level” by Putin.
He called the assassination attempt an “astonishingly reckless act”.
“The risk that others beyond the intended target might be killed or injured was entirely foreseeable. The risk was dramatically magnified by leaving in the city a bottle of novichok disguised as perfume,” he concluded.
The British government sanctioned Russia’s GRU intelligence agency and summoned Moscow’s ambassador on Thursday after the inquiry’s findings were made public.
The government said that GRU was being sanctioned in its entirety over the attack that targeted Skripal, a former Soviet agent who had defected to Britain.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said 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.”
On 4 March 2018, Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were poisoned by Novichok at his home. They were both seriously ill but survived the poisoning attempt.
Death of Dawn Sturgess
Sturgess died on 8 July the same year after inadvertently spraying Novichok over herself a week before that had been stored in a fake perfume bottle at the home of her boyfriend Charlie Rowley in Amesbury, around 11 kilometres north of Salisbury.
The incident prompted the government, led by PM Theresa May, to announce in November 2018 that it would hold a public inquiry into the use of the nerve agent on British soil.
On 5 September 2018, UK authorities identified two Russian nationals, using the names Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, as the main suspects in the Skripal poisoning and alleged they were active officers in Russian military intelligence.
They were later identified as GRU operatives Alexander Mishkin and Anatoly Chepiga, respectively.
The two were charged in absentia with attempted murder.
Czech police later said they were also hunting the pair in connection with a massive explosion at a Czech arms depot in 2014 that killed two people.
And in 2021, police named a third Russian accused of links to the Salisbury poisoning.
Counter-terrorism police recommended charges against Sergey Fedotov, an alias for Denis Sergeev, including conspiracy to murder, attempted murder as well as possession and use of a chemical weapon.
Authorities believed he was also a member of the GRU.
Additional sources • AP