Secret snaps of poison victim Skripal
EXTRAORDINARY snapshots from the life of novichok poisoning victim Sergei Skripal have emerged.
The former Soviet spy, 67, and his daughter Yulia, 33, nearly died after ingesting the nerve agent smeared on the front door handle of Mr Skripal’s home in Salisbury.
Both Yulia, who was visiting from Russia, and her father survived the attack in March and now live in hiding.
One of the photographs shows him standing proudly alongside his daughter as a little girl in the late 1980s. Another, is a snap from the 1972 wedding of Mr Skripal and wife Lyudmila – he looking sombre in a dark suit, while she smiles in a white lace dress and veil, carrying a posy.
Mrs Skripal died of cancer in 2012 and is buried in Wiltshire.
The former Russian intelligence officer, who moved to Britain as part of a spy-swap, is also pictured studying at a Soviet military academy in 1975.
In the early 1990s, he joined the Kremlin’s GRU military intelligence, but is believed to have been recruited to British intelligence in 1995 – four years after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Mr Skripal was captured, tried and jailed for 13 years in 2006, but released four years later, alongside three other Western moles, in exchange for 10 Russian agents.
Oleg Ivanov, a former friend, described him as a relaxed and fun-loving type, adding: “He simply loved money.
“You have to understand, the Soviet Union collapsed. All the Soviet ideology that underpinned our government also disappeared into history. There was a slogan at that time: Enrich yourselves.”
Elsewhere, Mr Skripal is captured with Lyudmila and Yulia at his daughter’s graduation ceremony in 2001. The photographs emerged in The New York Times.
Two Russian nationals have been named as the suspected assassins.