A third suspect of poisoning former GRU officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yuliya did not leave the United Kingdom immediately after March’s attack, The Telegraph reports.
The person in question allegedly used a false identity of Sergei Fedotov. He was expected to return to Moscow after completing the mission, but at the last minute canceled his check-in.
According to the newspaper, Fedotov helped ‘Alexander Petrov’ and ‘Ruslan Boshirov’ whom London holds responsible for poisoning the Skripals.
“Fedotov was then booked on to the same flight back to Moscow with the assassins. But it is now understood, according to sources, that Fedotov checked himself and his baggage off the plane before departure,” The Telegraph’s author Robert Mendlick reports.
In October 2018, the Russian media outlet Fontanka said that the 45-year-old Fedotov might have been another suspect came to Great Britain on March 2, on the day when ‘Petrov’ and ‘Boshirov’ arrived.
On March 4, Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yuliya were found unconscious at a shopping mall in the English town of Salisbury. The two were taken to hospital in critical condition. The were reportedly poisoned following exposure to an unknown substance. A bit later, British Prime Minister Theresa May said they had been poisoned with Novichok, a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia. The incident caused a number of rows and triggered a diplomatic war between the West and the Kremlin.
In early September, British prosecutors said the names of two Russian citizens suspected of poisoning the Skripals were Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov.
In September, The Insider and OSINT group Bellingcat published he results of its journalistic investigation regarding Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov whom the British authorities suspect of poisoning the former Russian agent and his daughter Yulia. According to the journalists, the real name of ‘Ruslan Boshirov’ is Anatoly Chepiga, a GRU Colonel and Hero of Russia, while ‘Alexander Petrov’ is GRU officer Alexander Mishkin in real life.
‘Petrov’ and ‘Boshirov’ denied their having any relation to the Russian special services in the interview with the Kremlin mouthpiece Russia Today. They claimed they visited Salisbury to see the sights, including the local medieval cathedral. Their clumsy statements and ridiculous explanations triggered a wave of jokes on the Internet.
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- Russia has no hand in Skripal case, US elections, killing Syrians – Putin to Fox News
СК, belsat.eu
