Russian agents accused of spying on Skripal emails for at least five years
Russian intelligence agencies have been spying on former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter for at least five years and had tested applying toxic nerve agents on door handles, a senior government official said yesterday.
National security adviser Sir Mark Sedwill said cyber specialists from the GRU – Russian military intelligence – targeted Yulia Skripal’s email accounts as far back as 2013.
In a letter to Nato secretarygeneral Jens Stoltenberg, Sir Mark also said in the 2000s the Russians had started a programme to train personnel from “special units” in the use of chemical warfare agents.
He said the programme included investigating ways of delivering nerve agents by applying them to door han- dles. The strongest concentration of the Novichok nerve agent found in the Salisbury incident was on the front door of Mr Skripal’s home.
The claims come after the international Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons backed Britain’s assertion that the Skripals were poisoned by Novichok – a military grade nerve agent developed by the Russians in the 1980s.
In his letter, Sir Mark set out why the UK believes only Russia has the “technical means, operational experience and the motive” to carry out such an attack, including declassified intelligence material.