Putin ‘had vowed to kill poisoned Russian spy’
VLADIMIR Putin vowed to kill the Russian double agent who was poisoned on British soil and is now fighting for his life, it emerged last night.
The Russian president declared that “traitors will kick the bucket” as Colonel Sergei Skripal, who was convicted of working for MI6, was being sent to the UK in a spy exchange.
The emergence of Mr Putin’s warning will reinforce the increasing ministers’ belief that the attack on Col Skripal in Salisbury, 150km south-west of London, was state-sponsored and perpetrated by the FSB Russian intelligence agency.
It came amid rising diplomatic tension between Moscow and London as Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson threatened fresh sanctions against Russia.
Col Skripal (66) and his daughter Yulia (33) remained critically ill in intensive care after they were exposed to an unknown substance as they sat on a bench outside a shopping centre.
Police and intelligence agencies are seeking to understand why Col Skripal was targeted on Sunday afternoon, almost eight years on from the spy exchange in 2010. One motive is a possible link between Col Skripal and Christopher Steele, the former MI6 agent who compiled a notorious dossier detailing alleged corruption involving Donald Trump and the Kremlin.
The apparent attack also raised questions as to why Col Skripal’s identity was not protected after his arrival to the UK. In a day of extraordinary developments, the Metropolitan Police’s counter-terrorism unit took control of the investigation from Salisbury police.
Mr Johnson told the House of Commons the case drew “echoes” of the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the former FSB agent who was poisoned in London in 2006.
He threatened further sanctions against Russia if it proved to be behind the attack, adding: “Though I am not now pointing fingers, I say to governments around the world that no attempt to take innocent life on British soil will go unpunished.”
Tensions between the Kremlin and Downing Street intensified when the Russian embassy accused Britain of the “demonisation of Russia”.
But one senior intelligence source said last night that the apparent assassination attempt bore all the hallmarks of the Russian state. “This looks very much like an FSB hit,” they said. “For Putin, revenge is a dish served cold. This man betrayed the Russian security service and they do very nasty things to such people.”
Col Skripal was paid $100,000 by MI6 to pass on details of Russian agents during the Nineties when he was a senior officer in the Russian military’s GRU intelligence unit. He was later arrested and convicted in 2006 of treason.
He was released from jail in 2010 in exchange for Russian spies captured in the US, including Anna Chapman, who
had lived in London and been married to a Briton.
Mr Putin said at the time: “Traitors will kick the bucket. Trust me. These people betrayed their friends, their brothers-in-arms.
“Whatever they got in exchange for it, those 30 pieces of silver they were given, they will choke on them.”
A relative of Col Skripal has said he knew he would not easily escape his past, and told BBC Russia: “From the first day he knew it would end badly.” In examining why Col Skripal should have been attacked seven years after he came to Britain, police and intelligence agencies are exploring a possible link to Mr Steele, the author of the Trump dossier that has seriously embarrassed both the White House and Mr Putin.
The discovery of Mr Skripal and his daughter triggered a huge decontamination effort. Crews in yellow hazardous materials suits worked into the night on Monday, spraying down the pavement around the bench where they were first spotted unconscious by local woman Freya Church.
A pub and a restaurant in the area remain “secured”, but police didn’t say how long the cordons would be in place.
CCTV footage of a man and woman walking through an alley connecting a nearby restaurant to the bench is believed to be of interest to police.