Brazen home run would be chess master Putin’s style

THAT police and MI5 officers have now identified the Novichok poisoning team is an astonishing feat and a credit to their relationship with foreign counterparts.

Some of the assassination team, maybe six members of GRU intelligence, could have travelled home via a circuitous route.

They knew they would be identified – the UK is obsessed with CCTV – but had to delay this before they reached the motherland. Analysts painstakingly traced the route using face recognition and huge collaboration with foreign intelligence.

It is possible the team fled via a Scandinavian country, Switzerland or even Cyprus – favourites among Russian spies as they are relatively insecure. But a western source tells me it is also likely MI5 discovered that the hitmen – and possibly women – fled direct from the UK to Moscow on Russian passports.

Some operatives, like whoever daubed Novichok on the Skripals’ door, needed to be safely and very quickly back in Russia.

Such brazenness is entirely possible because the regime has nothing to lose.

Trump’s fawning means Putin is hugely emboldened, playing the world like a murderous chess master. There are no more declared Russian intelligence officers left here to throw out. We could probably name the killers but there will be no arrests – as with the Litvinenko killing.

One option is to close down Russia’s embassy but there’s little to gain and it may be seen as too hostile.

Sources say UK intelligence is braced for a huge escalation in the Russian threat, a huge cyber assault – or worse.