Second Salisbury assassin is named
The real identity of the second Russian agent sent to kill Sergei Skripal has been disclosed as Alexander Mishkin, a 39-year-old spy with Russian military intelligence. The assassin travelled to Salisbury under the false name of Alexander Petrov, but kept his real date of birth. The unmasking of Petrov as Mishkin heaps further embarrassment on Vladimir Putin and his regime as it reels from the fallout from the failed assassination attempt on Colonel Skripal in March.
THE real identity of the second Russian agent sent to kill Sergei Skripal has been disclosed.
The assassin – who travelled under the false name of Alexander Petrov – is actually Alexander Mishkin, a 39-yearold spy with Russian military intelligence, it has been revealed.
The unmasking of Petrov as Mishkin heaps further embarrassment on President Vladimir Putin and his regime as it reels from the fallout from the failed assassination attempt on Col Skripal in March and the bungled attempt to discredit the authorities investigating the use of nerve agent in Salisbury.
The investigative group Bellingcat yesterday reported that Mishkin is from the northern Arkhangelsk region and had trained as a Russian navy doctor before being recruited by the GRU.
He travelled undercover to the Russia-backed breakaway republic of Transnistria and was in Ukraine during the 2013 protests that ousted the prorussian government in Kiev, it said.
Mishkin was registered to the address of GRU headquarters in Moscow until 2014, it added.
He is understood to be the more junior officer in the two-man team sent by the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, to kill Col Skripal by smearing weapons-grade Novichok nerve agent on his front door.
The other assassin, who used the name Ruslan Boshirov, was unmasked less than a fortnight ago as Col Anatoliy Chepiga, a decorated GRU officer given the Hero of the Russian Federation award by Mr Putin’s decree.
Col Skripal, 67, and his daughter Yulia, 33, survived the attack but Dawn Sturgess, a local resident, died after handling a fake perfume bottle that contained the nerve agent. The two men had discarded the glass bottle in Salisbury prior to fleeing the UK.
The Russian defence ministry has allegedly been discussing a purge of GRU officers whose “utter incompetence” led to its operations being so embarrassingly exposed.
An internal investigation of the GRU’S special operations abroad found agents failed to follow basic spying etiquette.
Mishkin, under his alias Petrov, has been charged in absentia with a series of offences including conspiracy to murder and use and possession of Novichok nerve agent contrary to the Chemical Weapons Act.
He and Chepiga travelled to London on March 2 to kill Col Skripal, a former GRU agent who had been caught selling secrets to MI6.
Under their false names, the pair appeared on the Kremlin-backed RT television station to deny GRU membership. They claimed to work in the fitness industry and had simply travelled to Salisbury to visit landmarks.
But their story was ridiculed, not least when they claimed the Wiltshire snow and slush forced them to return to London on March 3.
Last night, Tory MP Bob Seely, who sits on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, said: “It is appalling that a medical doctor appears to have been part of a team of GRU operatives that attempted to deliver a lethal poison to their target – and accidentally killed another person by mistake.”