Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Salisbury killers may be part of elite Putin hit squad
Agencies look at prior ‘hits’
THE two Russian men accused of the Salisbury novichok attack may have assassinated other targets for Vladimir Putin’s regime, it is feared.
Law enforcement and human rights groups in conflict zones such as Ukraine, Georgia and Chechnya are looking into possible previous hits by the pair.
Now British police and MI5 could be drafted in to help the investigation.
It follows the claim that one of the men, named as Ruslan Boshirov, is the highly decorated Russian GRU spy Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga.
Villagers in the remote hamlet where he grew up, some 4,000 miles east of Moscow, yesterday identified him from photos of Boshirov. One said: “One hundred per cent him. Eyes almost black.”
British military intelligence sources believe Chepiga and his accomplice, known only as Alex- ander Petrov, are GRU killers, trained in “removing” the Russian regime’s political and military opponents.
One ex-british military intelligence officer said: “Various groups will have an interest in pursuing enquiries into the deaths of key figures that may have been pre-identified as targets for murder in the run-up to major Russian operations. “This is what these GRU officers will be trained to do. It is highly likely they’ve done this kind of thing before.” The Mirror revealed last week the men “likely” served in a Spetsnaz special unit trained to wipe out opponents ahead of regular forces.
In 2014 GRU Spetsnaz units led Russia’s annexation of Crimea, before activating and arming pro-russian groups in neighbouring East Ukraine. Chepiga was seen in Ukraine that year.
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has warned Russia it will pay a “high price” if it continues to use chemical weapons following the Salisbury nerve agent poisoning of former Russian spy
Sergei Skripal, 67, and daughter Yulia, 33. Mum Dawn Sturgess, 44, died weeks after the attack after spraying novichok from a discarded perfume bottle. Her boyfriend Charlie Rowley, 45, was left seriously ill. Mr Hunt said he had a “frank exchange of views” with Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, when they met at the UN General Assembly in New York. Yesterday Sergei’s cousin Viktoria Skripal claimed it was “illogical” a GRU hit squad would have been sent to kill him. She said there were far bigger figures, seen as “more odious” than him, who remain alive in the West. And she said that a colonel in the GRU special forces would not have carried out such a “clumsy” mission. The Zizzi restaurant where Sergei and Yulia ate shortly before they fell ill is to re-open in the coming months after thorough decontamination since the attack in March.