Masha Slonim: The story of the Skripals' poisoning looks like a spy thriller

Six months of meticulous work by 250 people, 11,000 hours of CCTV footage...

“Highly likely” – the expression that amused so much the Director of the Information and Press Department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs - and “beyond reasonable doubt” (a legal definition often meaning that prosecution has confidence in its arguments – in this way English authorities expressed their certainty that Sergei and Yulia Skripal had been poisoned by Russian agents) now sound like “almost certainly”. English language is precise and restrained like English politicians who use it in Parliament.

In her Commons statement on Russia, Theresa May declared that The Crown Prosecution Service gathered enough evidence to charge two Russian citizens with the attempted murder, but didn’t name Putin as a person who ordered the killing, saying only that the decision to poison Skripals was made at a senior level. It’s clear what kind of level that implies. The next day British Security Minister confirmed that the Russian state was behind the chemical attack.

Passports as well as names of GRU agents Petrov and Boshirov are likely to be fake. And how could they not? Could GRU agents travel across Europe for several years, among other things visiting Britain, using their real passports? It’s known that, for example, all foreign trips by people working in the FSB are regulated by the Decree №179 from 17.04.12 that stipulates possible restrictions on a person’s departure from the country until his contract is over.

«Employee can be allowed to travel abroad by his superiors only if he has a solid reason – for example, the necessity to obtain medical treatment or the sickness of people closest to him».

Application for travelling abroad can also be filed on the basis of the necessity to:

resolve matters of inheritance;
visit the graves of the closest relatives;
resolve the matters of alienation of property registered outside the Russian Federation;
visit relatives living abroad”.

I wonder who among Petrov’s-Boshirov’s relatives got sick in March of this year in England?

Theresa May didn’t mention Putin’s name in her speech, saying only that Russian government was behind the attempted murder. But the Commons foreign affairs committee chairman, Tom Tugendhat, said there was "no doubt” that Putin was responsible for a “war-like act”.

Both in March when the attempted poisoning of Skripals took place and in July when Dawn Sturgess, the resident of Salisbury and the accidental victim, died after spraying herself with a «perfume» that turned out to be a poison and her boyfriend Charles Rowley was severely affected, English people were shocked and outraged by the audacity of agents and GRU that essentially organized the chemical attack in the peaceful English town.

Judging by a publicly released information and CCTV footage, GRU agents acted promptly but weren’t exactly discreet in their movements. The newspaper Fontanka reported that they had return tickets for two flights, on the 4th and 5th of March, as a precaution, and they were sure that they would have enough time to leave the country before Salisbury victims had been found. And they really managed to leave in time – fly away by Aeroflot in the evening of March, 4 when the attempted murder took place.

The sources in the British intelligence services told Times that GRU «appeared to be growing arrogant and complacent. Agency shifted from seeking “plausible deniability” for its acts to settling for “implausible deniability”: denying actions even in the face of clear evidence».

Journalists saw a report compiled by British officials who gathered data on operations by the GRU, including assassinations and missile attacks, since 2004. According to the report, around half the 26 most serious operations in the world have occurred since January last year.

Meanwhile, England turned into a capital of political assassinations.

The most notorious murder was, of course, the polonium poisoning in London of the ex-FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. Several years later, Litvinenko’s widow Marina and his friend Alex Goldfarb achieved a public inquiry, a full-fledged procedure to determine those responsible. The judge who chaired the inquiry came to the conclusion that Putin personally ordered the murder of his former colleague.

It’s interesting that speaking of President Putin’s responsibility, the judge used the same legal expression: «beyond reasonable doubt». The real trial of Litvinenko’s murderers has never taken place. It’s known that Russia doesn’t extradite its citizens, and, in addition to that, Andrei Lugovoi who British authorities believe to be the killer soon became the member of the Duma. Untouchable.

Alexander Litvinenko wasn’t the only victim of Russian security services. According to the BuzzFeed’s investigation, there were at least 14 deaths under mysterious circumstances of Russian or former Russian citizens in the UK and US. Their killers managed to escape and hide unexposed.

This time Britain isn’t even seeking the extradition of two exposed agents, knowing that its request will be refused. But the case has been opened; Petrov and Boshirov (or whoever hides under these names) are wanted by the security services.

What else can Britain do?

It has already expelled a record number of Russian diplomats immediately after the attempted murder of Skripals, greatly complicating the job of the embassy and agents working under cover of the embassy. At the time Britain received the support of the US and European Union countries that in their turn expelled dozens of Russian diplomats.

This time British Prime Minister promised to deploy the full range of tools of security services against GRU. Jeremy Fleming, the head of the British Government Communication Headquarters, confirmed that his agency is ready to counter the Russian threat.

As it is customary for a British spy, Fleming didn’t say much about the methods that will be deployed by his agency. But it was reported in the Times that almost certainly the elements of cyber warfare are being considered among the tools Theresa May talked about in her statement. These operations will be aiming at the thwarting of encrypted message exchanges and getting access to the finances. This refers to the groups cooperating with the Russian intelligence – in particular, those that appear to be a bridge between the Intelligence, Russian criminal groups and Kremlin.

In her speech in front of the members of the UN Security Council, the UK's representative to the UN said that Russia «is working in a parallel universe where normal rules of international law are inverted».

Britain was supported by Spain, France, Germany and Canada.

It’s very likely that there will be the crackdown on the oligarchs closest to Putin who hide their riches in London. In fact, demands for such a crackdown have been voiced for a long time.

This whole story looks like a spy thriller, but unfortunately, it’s happening literally before our eyes.

It’s interesting what the master of this genre, John le Carre, think of all this? In his novel (“Smiley’s People”) that came out in 1979 something similar happens to General Vladimir, a Soviet émigré in London. Methods are a bit different, but it’s the same idea: the attempted murder and the killing carried out by the agents of Soviet/Russian security services in broad daylight in a peaceful English town.

In the near future, we’ll probably learn a lot of interesting things – in particular, where a perfume bottle containing the remnants of the nerve agent was between March when agents spread it on a doorknob of Sergei Skripal’s house and the end of June when it was picked up by Charles Rowley?

Police don’t have an answer to this question yet, but, as reported by the sources in the Intelligence, now it’s known that a perfume bottle contained a pure, undiluted nerve agent substance «novichok» in an amount enough to kill 4,000 people.