Skripal suspect ‘was our old neighbour’

THE man accused of poisoning Sergei Skripal grew up in a family with ties to the Russian army and signed up for officer training straight after school, according to neighbours from his home town near the Chinese border.

Anatoly Chepiga, who neighbours confirmed is the true name of one of the Salisbury attackers, was raised in a single-storey white-brick house near the school where he was a star footballer.

With three bedrooms, central heating and indoor plumbing, it was an affluent residence for the village of Berezovka where his parents worked at a military base.

Many here have fond memories of the special forces colonel as a conscientious student whose glittering military career made his family proud.

“Yes, that’s him. He was a good kid,” Anatoly Chepaikin said when shown photographs. British authorities last month charged two Russians travelling under the aliases Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov with the Salisbury attack in March.

Multiple neighbours confirmed that Boshirov and Chepiga are the same man.

“Oh, how he’s aged! He looks so old! That’s because he was at war,” Valentina Kharchenko, Chepiga’s former neighbour, said when shown a picture.

“We heard he was a Hero of Russia. He made his family proud,” said Tatyana Mironenko, whose daughter went to school with Chepiga.

Locals were shocked that he had been accused of trying to kill Mr Skripal, with several doubting the allegations or whether there had been any poisoning at all.

Meanwhile, Sergei Kanev, a journalist who was involved in the investigation into Chepiga, has left Russia amid reports he could face fabricated charges of planning an attack on Vladimir Putin’s motorcade.