Putin’s smiling assassins

As UK declares war on Russia’s spies, chilling CCTV unmasks ...

THERESA May last night ordered a covert war on Vladimir Putin’s spy network.

As chilling pictures were released of two smiling Russian agents carrying out the Salisbury poison attack, the British prime minister said the UK’s security services would target the GRU, the military intelligence unit for whom the pair work.

Cyber warfare, espionage, financial sanctions and travel bans could be used, sources said. Interpol has been put on red alert to detain the two agents, who use the aliases Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov.

Mrs May warned they would be brought to Britain for trial if they ever left Russia. She blamed the Kremlin for the novichok attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, southern England, in March.

And she hinted the assassination order may have come directly from Mr Putin as only he has the power in Russian law to order killings abroad.

The Russian agents are also blamed for the death of mother of three Dawn Sturgess, 44, in July.

‘Approved at a senior level’

She and her partner Charlie Rowley were poisoned when they picked up an abandoned perfume bottle containing the nerve agent novichok.

Yesterday’s developments follow a huge police inquiry, which tracked the movements of Petrov and Boshirov to Salisbury, where they sprayed novichok on Mr Skripal’s front door handle.

As the Kremlin faced condemnation from across the globe:

Britain called an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council this afternoon;

Mrs May spoke to Donald Trump and Canada’s Justin Trudeau to seek support for fresh action;

Speaking from his hospital bed, Mr Rowley, 45, said he wanted Petrov and Boshirov brought to justice;

Moscow media said the pair had travelled extensively across Europe;

A senior Russian diplomat was summoned to Britain’s Foreign Office for a dressing-down;

Former UK attorney general Dominic Grieve urged restrictions on all Russian travellers;

The Kremlin dismissed the British accusations out of hand.

Mrs May acknowledged yesterday that it was futile to expect Russia to hand over the two assassins, not least as Russia has a constitutional bar on extradition.

She savaged Moscow’s response to the novichok attacks, saying requests for co-operation had been met with ‘obfuscation and lies’.

MPs were told new powers were in force to stop at the border anyone suspected of ‘hostile state activity’.

Russian oligarchs linked to Mr Putin face a clampdown, including searches of private flights and investigations of ‘unexplained wealth’ by the National Crime Agency.

Mrs May said retaliatory action would focus specifically against the GRU, the organisation linked to the downing of the MH17 airliner in Ukraine, attacks in Syria and election-rigging in the United States.

She said it was clear the Salisbury attack was not a rogue operation and must have been approved at a senior level of the Russian state.

Bob Seely, a Conservative MP and Russia expert, said the order could ‘only have come from the Russian head of state’.

The unprecedented statement from Mrs May came after Scotland Yard, which leads counter-terrorism operations in Britain, set out the results of its lengthy inquiry.

After months of secrecy, the force revealed that not only had it identified the prime suspects but it had amassed enough evidence for prosecutors to bring charges.

Officers accused Petrov and Boshirov of conspiring to murder Mr Skripal, and the attempted murder of Yulia and Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey.

The police officer was contaminated with novichok when he opened the front door of the Skripal home after its owners were

‘Found collapsed on a bench’

found collapsed on a bench.

Investigators believe they know the identities of the two military intelligence agents but chose instead to publicise aliases used in their Russian passports.

They are asking people worldwide to contact them if they can put a name to the faces. Police obtained domestic and European arrest warrants, and lodged Interpol red notices, effectively confining the pair to their homeland.

But Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service said it would not apply for their extradition because the Russian State refuses to deport its citizens to face trial overseas.

Both men are believed to be agents for the GRU, for whom Mr Skripal was a colonel before being jailed for selling secrets to the West. He was brought to the UK in a spy swap.

In a bid to silence the chorus of online scepticism about the case fuelled by Russian trolls, police gave a step-by-step account of the movements of the two-man hit

squad. CCTV stills showed Petrov and Boshirov arriving at Gatwick and travelling through London before visiting Salisbury twice by train.

Dressed in padded jackets, hats and carrying a rucksack the men checked the scene of their mission for reconnaissance before returning the second day.

A camera caught the pair smiling and laughing within minutes of carrying out their attack. By 10.30pm that night they were boarding an Aeroflot flight to Moscow from Heathrow, just over 50 hours after first touching down.

It is understood that the 250strong team of detectives identified the two men as suspects in May while examining more than 11,000 hours of footage. They were able to painstakingly follow their steps, leading to the City Stay Hotel, in Bow, east London, where they spent both nights. Forensics experts discovered a minute trace of novichok in their room, a sample so small it was washed away by the testing swab.

Unveiling the dossier of evidence, assistant Metropolitan Police commissioner Neil Basu said the pair had travelled extensively in Britain and overseas.

Mr Basu, the UK’s top counterterrorism officer, branded it a remarkably sophisticated attack by ‘people knowledgeable in this kind of tradecraft’.

Mrs May said police had ruled out the possibility that Russia was behind 14 other deaths in the UK.