Second Skripal suspect decorated by Putin, reveals Bellingcat probe
london — One of the two suspects behind the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Britain was an intelligence operative who was personally decorated as a hero by President Vladimir Putin in 2014, investigative group Bellingcat said on Tuesday.
The site said on Monday that the man, who used the alias “Alexander Petrov”, was in fact Alexander Mishkin, a trained military doctor employed by Moscow’s GRU military intelligence service.
Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins and researcher Christo Grozev told reporters at an event in the British parliament on Tuesday that they discovered Mishkin had taken part in undercover operations in Ukraine and the breakaway republic of Transnistria. Higgins and Grozev said that Mishkin was made a Hero of the Russian Federation by Putin in the autumn of 2014. People familiar with his family believed it was awarded for activities “either in Crimea or in relation to (former Ukrainian president Viktor) Yanukovych”, according to their report. A popular uprising in Ukraine ousted the Moscowbacked Yanukovych, who fled the country in February 2014, and Russia annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea a month later.
The investigative group has previously identified GRU colonel Anatoly Chepiga as the other suspect behind the March poisoning attack and said that he too had received Russia’s highest award the same year in a secret ceremony in the Kremlin. The two are accused by UK authorities of attempting to murder Skripal and his daughter Yulia with the Soviet-made nerve agent Novichok. —