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LONDON (Reuters) – The second of two Russians accused by Britain of poisoning former Russian spy Sergei Skripal was named Monday by the Bellingcat investigative site as a military doctor in the service. Russian intelligence GRU.
A still image taken from a video broadcast by RT International News Channel on September 13, 2018 shows two Russians with the same names, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, two accused of Britain in the business of the United States. Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal. and his daughter Yulia, during an interview in an unidentified place, in Russia. RT / Document via REUTERS TV
Bellingcat, who covers intelligence issues, called Alexander Yevgenyevich Mishkin, 39, indicted by Britain last month under the name of Alexander Petrov.
The British Daily Telegraph newspaper also named Mishkin in a separate report released Monday.
British prosecutors accused Petrov and another man, Ruslan Boshirov in absentia, of attempted murder for Novichok's nervous agent attack on Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury in March, but claimed to believe that the suspects used pseudonyms to enter Great Britain.
Last month, Bellingcat identified Boshirov as a GRU colonel whose real name was Anatoliy Chepiga.
British police said they did not want to comment on speculation about the real identity of the two men being charged, in response to a question about the latest report.
Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found slumped on a public bench in Salisbury. The case has been at the origin of the largest East-West diplomatic expulsions since the Cold War.
A woman later died of poisoning in Novichok after her partner had found a vial of counterfeit perfume that, according to police, had been used to pass the nerve agent to Britain.
Mishkin was born in July 1979 in the village of Loyga, in the Archangelsk district of northern Russia. Until September 2014, his home in Moscow was the same as that of the GRU headquarters, said Bellingcat.
"Bellingcat's identification process included multiple open sources, testimonials from people close to the person, as well as copies of personally identifiable documents, including a scanned copy of his passport," the statement said. website.
Mishkin's GRU rank was not known, but after 15 years of service, he was probably a lieutenant-colonel or colonel.
He was recruited by the GRU during his studies at one of the academies of military medicine in Russia. Between 2011 and 2018, he traveled several times under the identity of Alexander Petrov, particularly in Ukraine and in the Moldovan separatist territory of Transnistria.
Russia denies any involvement in the poisoning and the two men publicly declared that they were tourists who had flown to London for entertainment and had visited Salisbury to see its cathedral.
The Russian Embassy in London did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by email.
Report by David Milliken; Edited by Richard Balmforth and Hugh Lawson
