This article is more than 10 months old

This article is more than 10 months old

The investigative website Bellingcat has identified the second suspect responsible for poisoning Sergei Skripal as Alexander Mishkin, a doctor working for Russia’s GRU military spy agency.

The website said it had tracked down Mishkin’s real identity after obtaining a scanned copy of his actual passport. It had confirmed details with people who knew him and using open source information, it said.

Last month Bellingcat identified the other suspect, previously named as Ruslan Boshirov, as Col Anatoliy Chepiga, a special forces veteran.

Mishkin and Chepiga allegedly poisoned Skripal and his daughter Yulia in March using the Soviet nerve agent novichok. Both flew into the UK using the false identities of Boshirov and Alexander Petrov.

According to Bellingcat, Petrov is in fact Mishkin, a trained military doctor working undercover for the GRU. Mishkin’s passport, issued in 2001 in St Petersburg, gives his real name. He was born in Loyga, a village in the Archangelsk district of northern Russia, the document suggests.

Profile What is Russia's GRU intelligence agency? Show Hide Powerful and mysterious, the GRU is one of Russia’s three intelligence agencies. It has been accused by the US of having taken the lead in hacking the 2016 US presidential election. Russia also has the FSB and SVR. The former is the sprawling structure that absorbed most parts of the KGB after the fall of the Soviet Union, while the latter is the part that focused on spying abroad, which became a new structure in modern Russia. The GRU, the intelligence wing of the Russian army, has always been a separate entity. All three run agents and missions abroad.

The GRU went into decline in the 1990s and there was some talk of disbanding it, but in 2006 it moved to new headquarters. It was considered instrumental in Russian manoeuvres to annex Crimea in 2014 and subsequent interference in eastern Ukraine.

The level of secrecy surrounding the GRU is so high that there was even speculation in 2016 that it had changed its name without anybody knowing.

Mishkin studied and graduated from one of Russia’s elite military medical academies, and was trained as a military doctor for the Russian naval armed forces.

During his studies, Mishkin was recruited by the GRU, Bellingcat said, and by 2010 he had relocated to Moscow. It was there he received his undercover identity – including a second national ID and a travel passport – under the Petrov alias.

The website is due to release further details at a press conference on Tuesday in the House of Commons. It will also publish a full report detailing how Mishkin was identified, along with witness interviews at 1pm.

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It has established that Mishkin travelled extensively from 2011 to 2018 using his fake identity.

He made multiple trips to Ukraine and to the neighbouring breakaway Moscow-supported republic of Transnistria. His last trip to Kiev happened in December 2013, at a time when anti-government protests were taking place against Ukraine’s president Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych fled weeks later to Russia.

Chepiga was also involved in events in Ukraine, and received a state award for his “peace-keeping” role there. Unlike Chepiga’s cover identity, Mishkin’s includes authentic details from his own biography. His birth date, first and patronymic name – Yevgeneyvich – and the first names of his parents are the same.

The revelation is another astonishing development in the Skripal story. The government has identified both men as GRU officers and has accused Moscow of staging an attempted murder on British territory.

The Kremlin has vehemently denied this. But Chepiga and Mishkin’s appearance – under their cover names – on state TV prompted widespread mockery both at home and abroad.

The pair said they travelled from Russia to Skripal’s home city of Salisbury because they were attracted by its beautiful cathedral spire. They said they were forced to visit on two consecutive days because of heavy slush during their first trip.

Russia’s brazen lies mock the world. How best to fight for the truth? | Jonathan Freedland Read more

Mishkin’s professional expertise as a medical specialist raises further questions. The poison novichok is one of the most dangerous nerve agents to have been manufactured in a laboratory. Three months after the unsuccessful murder plot, the British woman Dawn Sturgess died after unwittingly spraying novichok on her wrists.

Until early September 2014, Mishkin was registered as living at Khoroshevskoe Shosse 76B in Moscow: the address of the headquarters of the GRU. In the autumn of 2014, both Mishkin and Anatoliy Chepiga shifted to upscale apartments, Bellingcat reported.

Mishkin’s current military rank is unknown. The website said that based on the rank when he graduated – senior lieutenant – it was probably that he was either a Lt Col or a full colonel at the time of Skripal’s poisoning.

Bellingcat said that the evidence it would present on Tuesday includes interviews with people who knew Mishkin, both in St Petersburg and his home village of Loyga. It said it would also provide visual evidence confirming that Mishkin and “Petrov” were the same person.</s>Investigative group Bellingcat says suspect in UK poisoning is a doctor working for Russian military intelligence.

LONDON (AP) — Investigative group Bellingcat says suspect in UK poisoning is a doctor working for Russian military intelligence. .</s>The investigative group Bellingcat is reporting that one of the two suspects in the poisoning of an ex-spy in England is a doctor who works for Russian military intelligence.

Bellingcat said on its website Monday that the man British authorities identified as Alexander Petrov is actually Alexander Mishkin, a trained doctor working for the Russian military intelligence unit known as GRU.

The website claims Mishkin traveled from Russia to Salisbury, England, using Alexander Petrov as an alias. British officials said when they brought charges in the March nerve agent attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter that they believed Petrov was an assumed name.

Bellingcat reported last month that the other suspect also traveled under an alias and was a decorated military agent named Anatoliy Chepiga.</s>Images issued by Bellingcat of the second suspect in the Sergei and Yulia Skripal poisoning case that the investigative website have named as Dr Alexander Yevgenyevich Mishkin

Images issued by Bellingcat of the second suspect in the Sergei and Yulia Skripal poisoning case that the investigative website have named as Dr Alexander Yevgenyevich Mishkin

INVESTIGATIVE GROUP BELLINGCAT has identified the second suspect in the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal as a doctor employed by Moscow’s GRU military intelligence service.

The Kremlin has rejected past charges about its involvement in the case as fabrications aimed at discrediting Russia.

Yet analysts will read Bellingcat’s latest publication for more clues into the alleged workings of a Russian spy agency at the centre of several international disputes.

“We have now identified ‘Alexander Petrov’ to be in fact Dr Alexander Yevgenyevich Mishkin, a trained military doctor in the employ of the GRU,” the British-based group said in a report published on its website.

Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned by a Soviet-designed chemical agent called Novichok in the English town of Salisbury in March.

Britain accuses the Russian government of trying to kill Skripal in retribution for his ongoing work with European intelligence agencies.

Russia says Britain has no proof.

The Skripal case and last week’s revelations that the GRU also allegedly tried to hack into the world’s chemical weapons watchdog in the Netherlands have further tattered Moscow’s strained ties with the West.

Bellingcat became a thorn in the Kremlin’s side by detailing its alleged crimes during the wars in Syria and Ukraine.

It worked with the Russian investigative team at The Insider to name the first of the two Skripal suspects as GRU agent Anatoly Chepiga last month.

Bellingcat said Chepiga was decorated in 2014 with the nation’s top award in a secret ceremony at the Kremlin.

“While Alexander Mishkin’s true persona has an even sparser digital footprint than Anatoly Chepiga’s, Bellingcat has been able to establish certain key facts from his background,” it wrote.

The group showed an apparent scan of his real national ID card – called a passport in Russia – from 2001.

Mishkin was identified there as having been born in July 1979 in the northwestern region of Arkhangelsk.

Bellingcat said he graduated from one of Russia’s elite Military Medical Academies with the qualification to become a doctor for the Russian naval armed forces.

“During his medical studies, Mishkin was recruited by the GRU, and by 2010 had relocated to Moscow, where he received his undercover identity – including a second national ID and travel passport – under the alias Alexander Petrov,” Bellingcat said.

Mishkin was said to have made repeated trips to Ukraine and had even stated the GRU headquarters as his home address.

Bellingcat said it gathered its information from open sources and ‘testimony from people familiar with the person’.

The two suspects gave a bizarre interview to a Russian TV channel after the UK government released CCTV footage of their trip to Salisbury around the very time the Skripals were poisoned.

They explained that they went to the small town as tourists and had always wanted to see its tower.

The interview was not only widely mocked but also left security analysts at a loss to explain why Russia would stage-manage their hapless TV appearance in the first place.

One theory suggested by British intelligence was that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to publically punish the two men for both fumbling their assignment and getting caught.

Putin added to the mystery by unleashing a fresh attack on Skripal at an energy forum in Moscow last week.

“He is just a scumbag,” Putin said of Skripal.

“He is just a spy, a traitor to the homeland.”

Putin was himself a foreign intelligence officer who was based in the German city of Dresden in the years leading up to the Soviet Union’s collapse.</s>This undated handout image issued by Bellingcat shows photos of Dr Alexander Yevgenyevich Mishkin, the man the investigative website have alleged was who travelled to Salisbury under the alias Alexander Petrov, over the years. The investigative group Bellingcat is reporting that one of the two suspects in the poisoning of an ex-spy in England is a doctor who works for Russian military intelligence. Bellingcat said on its website Monday, Oct. 8, 2018 that the man British authorities identified as Alexander Petrov is actually Alexander Mishkin, a trained doctor working for the Russian military intelligence unit known as GRU. (Bellingcat via AP) (Bellingcat)</s>One of the two suspects in the poisoning of an ex-spy in England is a trained doctor who works for Russian military intelligence and traveled to Britain under an alias, investigative group Bellingcat reported Monday.

Bellingcat said on its website that the man British authorities identified as Alexander Petrov is actually Alexander Mishkin, a doctor working for the Russian military intelligence unit known as GRU.

British officials said when they brought charges against two Russians in the March nerve agent attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter that they believed Petrov was an assumed name.

The other suspect also traveled to Salisbury, England, under an alias — Ruslan Boshirov — and is in fact a decorated Russian agent named Anatoliy Chepiga, Bellingcat reported last month.

The poisoning of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian agent who was convicted of spying for Britain, became a major international incident. British authorities said Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were sickened by a Soviet-made nerve agent.

British Prime Minister Theresa May said the attack was likely ordered at the highest levels of the Russia government, an allegation vehemently rejected by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Skripals survived after a lengthy hospital stay in intensive care. But the nerve agent killed a British woman, Dawn Sturgess, and seriously sickened her partner. British police have said they think the couple was exposed to the substance in June from traces in the bottle that had contained the Novichok used to poison the Skripals months earlier.

The Bellingcat report says Mishkin, the doctor it said works for Russian intelligence, was born in 1979 in the Archangelsk District in northern Russia and graduated from the elite Military Medical Academies, where he was trained for medical work in the Russian navy.

Mishkin was recruited by the secretive GRU and stationed in Moscow, where he was given the undercover identity of Alexander Petrov, the investigative group said.

Bellingcat said he made multiple trips to Ukraine. The group says it will provide forensic evidence and further information about how it identified Mishkin on Tuesday.

Both suspects have appeared on Russian TV to deny any link to the Salisbury poisonings. They said they went to the city to visit its cathedral.</s>The name of the second suspect in the Salisbury case is actually Alexander Mishkin, the BBC understands. The Bellingcat investigative website says the man who travelled under the alias Alexander Petrov is in reality a military doctor working for Russian intelligence, the GRU.

Last month, Bellingcat named the first suspect as Anatoliy Chepiga, a claim rejected by Russia. More details about how it uncovered the identity will be released on Tuesday. Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in March.

The British open source website said it had identified the suspect using testimonies from people the suspect knew and a scanned copy of his passport. It said both his real passport and the false passport he travelled to the UK on in the name of Alexander Petrov carried the same date of birth.

Bellingcat claims he was recruited by Russian intelligence while he was completing his medical studies, and made several trips to Ukraine, including during the 2013 unrest. It took longer for investigators at the Bellingcat website to identify Alexander Mishkin as he has an even sparser digital footprint than the first man to be named, Anatoly Chepiga.

But using databases and passport details they concluded that this was the real name of the man who came to Salisbury as Alexander Petrov. Facial recognition experts were asked to examine two photos 15 years apart and use techniques of simulated age progression to establish the match.

Mishkin's identification will raise more questions about how easy it has been to expose supposedly undercover intelligence officers and undermine Russia's official account that the two men who came to Salisbury were there to see the Cathedral spire.

Recent reports in the Russian media suggest that Vladimir Putin - himself a former spy chief - is unhappy with the GRU's performance - and that a purge could be on the way.

A spokesman for the Home Office said it would not comment as it was a police investigation. A spokesperson for London's Metropolitan Police said it would not comment on the speculation.

Conservative MP Bob Seely, a member of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said: It is appalling that a medical doctor appears to have been part of a team of GRU operatives...

Whilst this operation has been a botched embarrassment for the Kremlin from beginning to end, it's worth remembering that we may not know about the GRU's successful operations.

Following the attempted poisoning in Salisbury, UK investigators said one of the two suspects had been travelling under the name Ruslan Boshirov. In September, Bellingcat revealed he was actually an military intelligence officer named Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga.

He served in Chechnya and Ukraine and was made a Hero of the Russian Federation” in 2014, the website said.</s>London, Oct 9 (IANS) A second suspect accused of poisoning former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the UK, has been named, an investigative website has revealed.

According to the British website Bellingcat, the second suspect is the man who travelled under the alias Alexander Petrov who in reality is a military doctor working for GRU or the Russian intelligence, the BBC reported on Tuesday.

Last month, Bellingcat named the first suspect as Anatoliy Chepiga, a claim rejected by Russia.

The website said it had identified Petrov using testimonies from people the suspect knew and a scanned copy of his passport.

It said both his real passport and the false passport he travelled to the UK on in the name of Petrov carried the same date of birth.

Bellingcat claims he was recruited by Russian intelligence while he was completing his medical studies and made several trips to Ukraine, including during the 2013 unrest.

The Home Office and the Metropolitan Police are yet to comment on the development.

Skripal, who sold secrets to British intelligence MI6, and his daughter Yulia survived being poisoned with Novichok on March 4 in Salisbury.

The suspects were alleged to have smeared the nerve agent on a door handle of Skripal’s home in Salisbury.

The attack left Skripal and Yulia critically ill, but Dawn Sturgess, 44, was later exposed to the same nerve agent and died in hospital.</s>Researchers from investigative collective Bellingcat claim they have identified the second suspect involved in the Skripal poisoning case.

Bellingcat, who worked with Russian news organisation The Insider, identified the man as Alexander Mishkin, a doctor working for the Russian GRU intelligence service.

Together with another suspect, earlier identified by Bellingcat to be Anatoliy Chepiga, Mishkin travelled to the British town Salisbury in March 2018 and allegedly poisoned former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

According to Bellingcat, Mishkin was born in the Archangelsk District in northern Russia.

He was recruited by the GRU while at one of Russia’s military medical academies, eventually becoming a military doctor.

“Until early September 2014, Mishkin’s registered home address in Moscow was Khoroshevskoe Shosse 76B – the address of the headquarters of the GRU,” Bellingcat’s investigation concluded.

The intelligence service provided Mishkin with a new identity and corresponding paperwork.

Using this identity, Alexander Petrov, travelled extensively to several European countries including Ukraine and Moldova.

In March 2018, he travelled to the UK with someone called Anatoliy Chepiga, who used documents proclaiming he was called Ruslan Boshirov.

There, they allegedly poisoned Skripal, who was a former Russian intelligence officer turned double agent, using a rare chemical nerve agent called Novichok.

Following the poisoning, both Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia spent several weeks in a hospital, but both ultimately survived.

Last month, the UK charged the two Russians with conspiracy to murder and attempted murder.

“Based on the body of intelligence, the government has concluded that the two individuals named by the police and the Crown Prosecution Service are officers from the Russian military intelligence service, also known as the GRU,” British Prime Minister Theresa May told parliament at the time.

“This was also not a rogue operation. It was almost certainly approved outside the GRU at a senior level of the Russian state,” she said.

Russia has denied any involvement in the case and has claimed the two Russians were in Salisbury on a tourist trip.

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin again denied involvement in the poisoning, but he branded the former spy “a traitor” and “scumbag”.

Bellingcat is a group of researchers who mostly use open source information to verify information.

They have previously published investigations about chemical attacks in Syria and the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.</s>The second Russian who Britain says was responsible for the poisoning of former double-agent Sergei Skripal was a military doctor for Russia's GRU military intelligence unit, investigative website Bellingcat said on Monday.

LONDON: The second of two Russians who Britain blames for the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal was named by investigative website Bellingcat on Monday as a military doctor for Russia's GRU intelligence service.

Bellingcat, which covers intelligence matters, named him as Alexander Yevgenyevich Mishkin, aged 39, who was charged by Britain last month under the name of Alexander Petrov.

Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper also named Mishkin in a separate report published on Monday.

British prosecutors charged Petrov and another man they named as Ruslan Boshirov in absentia with attempted murder for the Novichok nerve agent attack on Skripal and his daughter in the English city of Salisbury in March, but said they believed the suspects had used aliases to enter Britain.

Bellingcat last month identified Boshirov as a colonel in the GRU whose real name was Anatoliy Chepiga.

British police said they would not comment on speculation about the real identities of the two men facing charges, in response to a query about the latest report.

Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found slumped on a public bench in Salisbury, and the case prompted the biggest East-West diplomatic expulsions since the Cold War.

A woman later died from Novichok poisoning after her partner found a counterfeit perfume bottle which police believe had been used to smuggle the nerve agent into Britain.

Mishkin was born in July 1979 in the village of Loyga in the Archangelsk district of northern Russia, and until September 2014 his registered home address in Moscow was the same as the headquarters of the GRU, Bellingcat said.

"Bellingcat's identification process included multiple open sources, testimony from people familiar with the person, as well as copies of personally identifying documents, including a scanned copy of his passport," the website said.

Mishkin's GRU rank was unknown, it added, but based on his 15-year service was likely to be lieutenant colonel or colonel.

He was recruited by GRU during his studies at one of Russia's military medical academies, and between 2011 and 2018 he travelled repeatedly under the identity of Alexander Petrov, including to Ukraine and Moldova's breakaway territory of Transdniestria.

Russia denies any involvement in the poisoning, and the two men have said publicly they were tourists who had flown to London for fun and visited Salisbury to see its cathedral.

Russia's embassy in London did not immediately reply to an emailed request for comment.
Investigative website Bellingcat identifies the second suspect involved in the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal as Alexander Mishkin, a doctor who works for the Main Intelligence Directorate.