3rd Salisbury suspect is ‘$1million agent who vanished from records’
A THIRD suspect in the Salisbury novichok attack has been unmasked as a high-ranking Russian spy.
Denis Sergeev is a graduate of an elite military academy in Moscow that churns out top intelligence officers.
The 45-year-old is thought to have left the UK on the same day as the nerve agent attack on former double-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury.
Yesterday he was also linked to the botched poisoning of an arms dealer in Bulgaria in 2015. And he is said to have been the boss of several sham companies and connected to a Russian bank loan of more than $1million.
Sergeev’s true identity and details of his movements were revealed last night by investigative website Bellingcat.
Using the cover name Sergey Fedotov, he arrived at Heathrow on March 2 last year hours before Alexander Mishkin and Anatoly Chepiga – the two lead suspects in the Salisbury poisoning. All three are thought to serve in the Russian military intelligence service, the GRU. Sergeev was checked-in on a Heathrow flight to Russia on March 4 – the day the Skripals were found collapsed on a bench in Salisbury – but instead aborted his travel plans and made his way to Moscow via Rome.
Russian authorities are now thought to have taken the ‘unushared sual measure’ of erasing any public records relating to the three agents over the last two months. Bellingcat said: ‘These unprecedented actions cannot plausibly be taken without direct involvement of the Russian state, and add further credibility to the UK Government’s assertion that the Skripal poisoning operation, and the subsequent cover-up, were coordinated at a state level.’
Sergeev used a passport under his cover name to travel to cities including Milan, Geneva, Paris, Sofia and Istanbul. On a trip to Prague in 2013 he reportedly a room with fellow Skripal suspect Mishkin.
Bellingcat said it found evidence that Sergeev had served as the shareholder or managing director of eight Russian ‘sham’ companies, which were all liquidated between 2007 and 2012. In some of those, he shared the top job with other GRU officers.
In 2009, he was said to have secured a personal loan from a Russian bank for just over $1million, despite a credit history showing limited assets.
In 2015, Sergeev left Bulgaria on the night of the botched poisoning of arms dealer Emilian Gebrev, who collapsed during a dinner with trading partners and slipped into a coma. He survived, but no suspect was ever found. Flight records show Sergeev also travelled to Britain before and after the Brexit referendum in June 2016, including a four-day visit to London from July 14. The GRU agent also visited Barcelona in 2017 two days before the Catalonian independence referendum.
Married Sergeev, who has an adult daughter, was born in Kazakhstan, and served in the Russian army. In around 2000 he enrolled at Moscow’s Military Diplomatic Academy – a feeder for the GRU.
Mr Skripal, 66, and daughter Yulia, 33, were exposed to Novichok after it was sprayed on their front door handle in Salisbury. Mother- of- three Dawn Sturgess, 44, later died after discovering the discarded perfume bottle in which the deadly nerve agent had been transported.
‘Coordinated at state level’