‘Poisoned door handle hints at plot to kill spy’

LONDON — British officials investigating the poisoning of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian double agent, believe it is likely that an assassin smeared a nerve agent on the door handle at his home.

This operation is seen as so risky and sensitive that it is unlikely to have been undertaken without approval from the Kremlin, according to officials who have been briefed on the early findings of the inquiry.

This theory suggests that an assassin, who Britain believes was working on behalf of the Russian government, walked up to the door of Skripal’s brick home on a quiet street in Salisbury on March 4, the day he and his daughter Yulia were sickened.

Sergei Skripal, who was freed in a spy swap with the United States in 2010, is still in critical condition and unresponsive, but Yulia is conscious and talking, according to a BBC report.

Because the nerve agent is so potent, the officials said, the task could have been carried out only by trained professionals familiar with chemical weapons.

British and US officials are skeptical that independent actors could have carried out such a risky operation or obtained the agent without approval at the highest levels of the Russian government.

Four weeks after the assassination attempt, British and US officials are turning to the question of whether President Vladimir Putin himself was aware of, or ordered, the attack.