UK's May says nerve agent poisoning suspects are officers in Russia's GRU military intelligence agency

LONDON (AP) — UK's May says nerve agent poisoning suspects are officers in Russia's GRU military intelligence agency.</s>UK's May says nerve agent poisoning suspects are officers in Russia's GRU military intelligence agency

LONDON (AP) — UK's May says nerve agent poisoning suspects are officers in Russia's GRU military intelligence agency.</s>The security minister Ben Wallace has said that the Russian president Vladimir Putin is “ultimately responsible” for the deadly Salisbury nerve agent attack as a result of his firm grip on the Russian state.

His remarks are the furthest the British government has gone yet in attributing direct blame on Putin for the attempt by two Russian military intelligence officers to murder Sergei and Yulia Skripal with the military grade nerve agent in March.

Britain will seek to intensify diplomatic pressure on the Kremlin by laying out the case against Moscow at the United Nations security council, of which Russia is a member, on Thursday.

Theresa May did not explicitly blame Putin for authorising the attempted assassination, which resulted in the death of a British woman, when she addressed the Commons in a special statement on Monday, although she pointed the finger at the Kremlin.

The prime minister did, however, reveal the two suspects who flew into Britain with the novichok were officers in the GRU, Russian military intelligence, as police laid out a compelling trail showing how the suspects travelled from Moscow to London and then on to Salisbury, featuring numerous CCTV images and supporting detail.

Wallace told BBC Radio 4, however, that it was clear Putin held responsibility. He said: “Ultimately he does, in so far as he is the president of the Russian Federation and it is his government which controls funds and directs the military intelligence, the GRU, via his ministry of defence. I don’t think anyone can ever say that Mr Putin isn’t in control of his state.”

He added: “The GRU is without doubt not rogue. It is led, linked to both the senior members of the Russian general staff and the defence minister and, through that, to the Kremlin and the president’s office. Of course he’s responsible, he’s leader of the state.”

Senior Conservatives have already directly accused Putin of approving the operation.

The Commons foreign affairs committee chairman, Tom Tugendhat, said there was "no doubt” it was state ordered and that Putin bore responsibility for a “war-like act".

In the Commons on Tuesday, May told MPs: “The GRU is a highly disciplined organisation with a well-established chain of command. So this was not a rogue operation. It was almost certainly also approved outside the GRU at a senior level of the Russian state.” But she rejected the invitation to name Putin directly.

UK officials will come face to face with their Russian counterparts for the first time since the statement as they brief the UN security council on the two men suspected of the Salisbury nerve agent attack.

There is also likely to be less visible activity including covert work by British intelligence to try to disrupt the activities of the Russian military intelligence agency, including in cyberspace.

Wallace, however, insisted that any UK retaliation would be “in our way” within the rule of law rather than “thuggish, destructive and aggressive” tactics he said had been adopted by the Russians. "We choose to challenge the Russians in both the overt and the covert space, within the rule of law and in a sophisticated way,” he said.

He claimed that the British were making “significant progress” in the fight against illicit Russian money coming into the UK. The government will also push for the EU to agree new sanctions against Russia.

Ahead of the UN meeting, Australia, a close security partner, said it was in “lock step” with the UK on the importance of holding Russia to account over the “|dangerous and deliberate” attack.</s>Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov have been charged, but those may not even be their real names, according to authorities.

The Great Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service announced Wednesday that two Russian suspects – Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov – have been charged in the death former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and the attempted murder of his daughter, according to the Daily Mail.

Skripal died and Yulia Skripal had to be hospitalized in March after they were exposed to Novichok poisoning in Salisbury, the newspaper reported. Authorities tied the deaths of Dawn Sturgess to the same attack, along with an injury sustained by local police officer Nick Bailey, who had to be hospitalized, the Daily Mail noted.

Petrov and Boshirov were charged with conspiracy to murder and attempted murder, but prosecutors admitted that the men were likely traveling under aliases and the names are probably bogus, per the Daily Mail.

“Today marks the most significant moment so far in what has been one of the most complex and intensive investigations we have undertaken in Counter Terrorism policing; the charging of two suspects – both Russian nationals – in relation to the attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal,” Scotland Yard’s counter terror Commissioner Neil Basu said.

Police in the United Kingdom said that both men traveled with legitimate Russian passports into the country days before the Skripal assault. Prosecutors said they believe both men worked for Russia’s secret service, known as the GDU, the Guardian noted.

Law enforcement discovered CCTV footage of Petrov and Boshirov arriving at Gatwick Airport before staying at the City Stay Hotel in London. The two traveled to Salisbury on what was believed to be a reconnaissance mission before being spotted two days later near Skripal’s home, the Guardian detailed.

Authorities theorized that the men spread the military-grade poison on the front door of Skripal’s house and then flew back through Heathrow Airport later that day.

“It is of course for a jury to decide whether the evidence is enough for them to be sure of the suspects’ guilt,” Sue Hemming, the CPS director of legal services said. “We will not be applying to Russia for the extradition of these men as the Russian constitution does not permit extradition of its own nationals. Russia has made this clear following requests for extradition in other cases. Should this position change then an extradition request would be made.”

Prime Minister Theresa May told the House of Commons Wednesday that they believe the suspects were not carrying out a rogue operations, the Sun reported.

“Based on a body of intelligence, the government has concluded that the two individuals named by the police and CPS are officers from the Russian military intelligence service, also known as the GRU,” May said.</s>2 Russian Agents Carried Out Skripal Poison Attack, U.K. Says; Arrest Warrants Issued

Enlarge this image toggle caption U.K. Metropolitan Police U.K. Metropolitan Police

British authorities have charged two Russian men with using a Novichok nerve agent to poison former KGB spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. Scotland Yard now wants help to find the two men, who flew from the U.K. to Moscow on the same day the Skripals fell ill.

Calling it "the most significant moment so far" in the investigation into the Skripals' near-fatal encounter with the exotic poison, counterterrorism police said the attack was carried out by Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov — names that investigators say are likely aliases used for the operation.

British Prime Minister Theresa May said Britain's security and intelligence agencies have concluded "that the two individuals named by the police and CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] are officers from the Russian military intelligence service, also known as the GRU."

Citing the GRU's reputation for strict discipline and hierarchy, May added, "this was not a rogue operation."

"It was almost certainly also approved outside the GRU, at a senior level of the Russian state," May said, suggesting that President Vladimir Putin's government was deeply involved in the attack.

May has previously accused Russia of being behind the attempt to kill the former spy and his daughter. On Tuesday, she said that after the U.K. asked Moscow for information related to the case, Russia "replied with obfuscation and lies."

In Moscow's reply Wednesday, presidential aide Yuri Ushakov told the media that Britain has fabricated the names of the suspects, saying that the names "mean nothing" and that it "is difficult to comprehend" the U.K.'s motives, according to state-run Tass media.

The new details from police outline a brief international trip by the two suspects, who landed at the Gatwick airport from Moscow on March 2.

Over the course of two days, the men traveled from London to Salisbury, England, twice — once to perform reconnaissance around the Skripals' home, and again to put lethal poison on their front door, police say. The men were spotted on numerous security and surveillance cameras as they moved between the two cities. Hours after their final visit to Salisbury, they took a late-night flight back to Moscow on March 4 — the same day the Skripals were sickened.

"We have no evidence that they re-entered the U.K. after that date," said Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, of the counterterrorism force.

There are no plans to try to extradite the two men from Russia, said Sue Hemming of the Crown Prosecution Service, because "the Russian constitution does not permit extradition of its own nationals."

Hemming added, "We have, however, obtained a European Arrest Warrant which means that if either man travels to a country where an EAW is valid, they will be arrested and face extradition on these charges for which there is no statute of limitations."

Both of the Skripals survived the attempt on their lives, but in what police call a tragic consequence of the attack, Dawn Sturgess, a 44-year-old mother of three, died on July 8 after being exposed to the same nerve agent.

In Salisbury — the town where the Skripals were found incapacitated on a bench on March 4 — police officer Nick Bailey was left seriously ill after being exposed to the deadly material. The current charges relate to his and the Skripals' case.

Sturgess and her boyfriend, Charlie Rowley, fell ill in Amesbury, England. Providing new information about the Sturgess case, police say that while they're not certain how the suspects disposed of the poisonous material before leaving the U.K., "a significant amount of Novichok" was found in a bottle in Rowley's home. It had been held in a pink box, falsely labeled as Nina Ricci Premier Jour perfume.

"Charlie told police he found a box he thought contained perfume in a charity bin on Wednesday, 27 June," Assistant Commissioner Basu said. "Inside the box was a bottle and applicator. He tried to put the two parts together at his home address on Saturday, 30 June, and in doing so got some of the contents on himself. He said Dawn had applied some of the substance to her wrists before feeling unwell."

Enlarge this image toggle caption U.K. Metropolitan Police U.K. Metropolitan Police

The perfume packaging was bogus — and the bottle and nozzle had been "especially adapted," Basu said. The result, he said, was "a perfect cover for smuggling the weapon into the country, and a perfect delivery method for the attack against the Skripals' front door."

British police are publicly naming the two suspects one day after the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said it had corroborated the U.K. investigation's findings that "the same toxic chemical" was responsible for the attack in Salisbury and for Sturgess' death in Amesbury.

In May, two months after the attack, Yulia Skripal said that she and her father are "so lucky to have both survived this attempted assassination," despite ongoing health concerns and medical complications from the attack.

Prosecutors are charging the two alleged Russian agents with conspiracy to murder Sergei Skripal, along with the attempted murder of Sergei and Yulia Skripal and Nick Bailey, along with the use and possession of Novichok contrary to the Chemical Weapons Act, among other crimes.

Sergei Skripal had been a double-agent for Britain's MI6 intelligence service. He was eventually arrested in Russia, but he was freed in a prisoner swap in 2010, and he has become a U.K. citizen.

The attempt on Skripal's life is seen as part of a string of suspicious attacks or deaths of high-profile Russians living in the U.K. and abroad. The most famous of those cases centers on the poisoning death of Kremlin critic and former spy Alexander Litvinenko. But the list also includes Nikolai Glushkov, a 68-year-old Russian businessman who was murdered in March, and oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who died by hanging in London 2013.

Moscow has denied accusations that the Russian government is linked to those incidents.

The U.S. and other U.K. allies have imposed sanctions on Russia in retaliation for the poisoning.</s>UK's May says nerve agent poisoning suspects are officers in Russia's GRU military intelligence agency

LONDON (AP) — UK's May says nerve agent poisoning suspects are officers in Russia's GRU military intelligence agency.</s>Two Russian nationals have been identified as suspects over the Salisbury nerve agent attack, in which Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in March by the nerve agent Novichok. Russian nationals, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, have today been charged with the nerve agent attack on the former spy and his daughter according to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Domestic and European arrests warrant have been issued for the two suspects - but the Met Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu said the two men are likely operating under aliases. Following the announcement, Theresa May condemned Russian “malign state” activity and demanded Russia reigns in the activities of the GRU.

She said: “I come today to tell the House that based on a body of intelligence the Government has concluded that the two individuals named by the police and the CPS, are officers from the Russian Military Intelligence Service, also known as the GRU. “The GRU is a highly disciplined organisation with a well established chain of command, so this was not a rogue operation. “It was also almost certainly approved outside the GRU at a high level of the Russian state.” Prime Minister Theresa May said information provided by UK intelligence agencies links the two men to the Russian military intelligence service GRU.

What is the Russian GRU intelligence service? The GRU is the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. The service is one of the main Russian intelligence agencies born after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Sergei Skripal, who was poisoned in Salisbury earlier this year, used to work for the GRU. In recent years, the GRU has been accused of leading a number of covert operations, including the 2014 annexation of Crimea in Ukraine.

He said: “As in the killing of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko in 2006, Russian officers – this time working for Russian military intelligence, the GRU – flew into Britain on an Aeroflot flight under aliases days before the attack. "These are the findings of an inter-agency investigation, including up to 250 detectives, the UK's Defence, Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down and the security services. “Already Russia's Foreign Ministry is denying the claims, yet there's a trail of information – as there was in 2006 – including extensive CCTV, flight information, scientific evidence and other sources pointing the finger at Russian intelligence.”</s>MOSCOW (AP) — GRU isn’t as well-known a baleful acronym as KGB or FSB. But Russia’s military intelligence service is attracting increasing attention as allegations mount of devious and deadly operations on and off the field of battle.

The latest charge came Wednesday, when Britain identified two suspects in this year’s nerve-agent poisonings as GRU agents.

An overview of the GRU:

Formally named the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, the agency is almost universally referred to by its former acronym GRU.

It is the most shadowy of Russia’s secret services. When its previous director Igor Sergun died in 2016, the Kremlin announcement was so terse that it gave neither the date, cause or place of death.

The agency has an apparently broad mandate. According to the Defense Ministry website, it is tasked not only with “ensuring conditions conducive to the successful implementation of the Russian Federation’s defense and security policy” but with providing officials intelligence ” that they need to make decisions in the political, economic, defense, scientific, technical and environmental areas.”

Britain claims that two GRU agents carried out this spring’s attack with the nerve agent Novichok on Sergei Skripal, a former GRU officer who became a British double agent, and his daughter. Both survived the poisoning in the city of Salisbury, but three months later two area residents were sickened by the same nerve agent, one of them fatally — it is believed they found the discarded bottle that had carried the Skripals’ poison.

This combination photo made available by the Metropolitan Police on Wednesday Sept. 5, 2018, shows Alexander Petrov, left, and Ruslan Boshirov. British prosecutors have charged the two Russian men with the nerve agent poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the English city of Salisbury. They are charged in absentia with conspiracy to murder, attempted murder and use of the nerve agent Novichok. (Metropolitan Police via AP)

This week’s claim came less than two months after the U.S. indicted 12 alleged GRU agents for hacking into the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic Party and releasing tens of thousands of private communications, part of a sweeping conspiracy by the Kremlin to meddle in the 2016 U.S. election.

Also this year, the investigative group Bellingcat reported that a GRU officer was in charge of operations in eastern Ukraine, where Russia-backed separatists were fighting Ukrainian forces, in July 2014 when a Malaysian passenger airliner was shot down, killing all 298 people aboard. International investigators say the plane was shot down by a mobile missile launcher brought in from Russia. The GRU officer named by Bellingcat reportedly was responsible for weapons transfers.

Russia’s RBC news service reported this year that the GRU oversees Russian mercenaries in Syria, fighting there as a so-called shadow army.

Russian authorities generally deny allegations against the GRU and refuse to discuss its activities. They said they didn’t recognize the suspects Britain named Wednesday in the Salisbury poisoning.

A general view of the The CityStay hotel, where Russian Nationals Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov stayed before they traveled to Salisbury. (Ryan Hooper/PA via AP)

The GRU is one arm of Russia’s extensive security and intelligence apparatus, which also includes the Foreign Intelligence Service, known as the SVR, and the Federal Security Service, or FSB, which conducts domestic intelligence and counterintelligence. The SVR and FSB were spun off from the KGB after the collapse of the Soviet Union. A former KGB agent, Vladimir Putin ran the FSB before ascending to the presidency.

And as president, Putin names the top brass in the GRU. Of all the agencies, the FSB looms largest in Russians’ minds because it hunts domestic threats. The GRU, created under Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin, has a more ruthless reputation, but focuses its energies on foreign threats.

The agencies’ operations appear to both compete and cooperate.

Pavel Felgenhauer, an independent Moscow-based military analyst, told The Associated Press that if “the SVR runs into military intelligence, they have to share it with the GRU; that means they try not to run into military intelligence and tell their agents not to report anything military even if they know it. The other way around, military or GRU assets are asked never to report anything political.”

But in the case of the alleged U.S. election-related hacking, he said, “I believe that was an inter-service operation, because it’s not military but they gained some kind of hacking access and then they shared it with the FSB and the SVR.”</s>The Latest: UK's May: poisoning suspects were Russian agents

LONDON (AP) — The Latest on the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter in Britain (all times local):

British Prime Minister Theresa May says the two prime suspects in the nerve-agent poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter are agents of Russia's military intelligence agency.

May says U.K. intelligence services have concluded that the men, Alexander Petrov and Rusdan Boshirov, work for the GRU agency.

British prosecutors have charged the two men with the attack on the Skripals, but acknowledge that Russia will not extradite them. They say the names are probably aliases.

Police say they came to Britain two days before the March 4 attack on the Skripals in the city of Salisbury, and that traces of the Novichok nerve agent were found in their London hotel room.

Russia denies involvement, but May said Moscow was spreading "obfuscation and lies"

Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesman says Moscow has no knowledge of the suspects named in the poisoning of a former Russian agent in Britain.

British prosecutors on Wednesday charged two Russian men with the nerve agent poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia earlier this year. Police say the men flew from Moscow to London two days before the Skripals were poisoned on Russian passports but that it believes that the names were aliases.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova says the names of the men and their photos "say nothing to us." Zakharova called on Britain to cooperate with Russian law enforcement agencies on the investigation. She has criticized London for turning down Moscow's request to see the case files.

The Kremlin is denying that it played a role in the poisoning of a former Russian spy in a British city, saying that Britain is not sharing any intelligence with it.

British prosecutors on Wednesday charged two Russian men with the nerve agent poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia earlier this year. The prosecutors said that the U.K. is not asking Moscow to extradite the men because Russian law forbids extradition of the country's citizens.

Police say the men, both about 40, flew from Moscow to London two days before the Skripals were poisoned on March 4.

Speaking ahead of the announcement, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday denied any Russian role in the poisoning, saying that Russia has no new information about it because Britain has refused to share case files.

Police say they believe the nerve agent used to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter was smuggled to Britain in a counterfeit Nina Ricci perfume bottle and applied to the front door of Skripal's house.

More than three months later, the bottle was found by a local man, Charlie Rowley. He was hospitalized and his girlfriend Dawn Sturgess died after being exposed to the contents.

Police are still trying to determine where the bottle was between the Skripal poisoning in March and its discovery by Rowley on June 27.

As a result, he said, police are not yet ready to bring charges in the second poisoning.

Assistant police commissioner Neil Basu would not say whether police believe the suspects worked for Russian security services but, he said, "This was a sophisticated attack across borders."

British prosecutors have charged two Russian men with the nerve agent poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the English city of Salisbury.

The Crown Prosecution Service says Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov are charged in absentia with conspiracy to murder, attempted murder and use of the nerve agent Novichok.

Prosecutor Sue Hemming said Wednesday that the U.K. is not asking Moscow to extradite the men because Russian law forbids extradition of the country's citizens.

Police say the men, both about 40, flew from Moscow to London on Russian passports two days before the Skripals were poisoned on March 4.</s>Britain said Wednesday that two officials from Russia's GRU intelligence agency carried out a poisoning attack on a former spy on British soil in March, using a Nina Ricci perfume bottle containing a nerve agent.

- What is the GRU? -

GRU stands for the Main Intelligence Directorate, Russia's military intelligence agency which is one of Moscow's three spy agencies along with the FSB security service and the SVR foreign intelligence agency.

Still commonly known as GRU, the agency changed its name to the Main Directorate (GU) as a result of a reform in 2010 .

Its chief Igor Korobov reports to the Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.

The agency's structure, number of employees and finances constitute a state secret. Its official emblem is a black bat flying above the globe.

- What does it do? -

It has an extensive spy network abroad and its highly-trained "spetsnaz" special forces have fought in various conflicts, including in Afghanistan and Chechnya.

In recent years the agency has gained notoriety for its connection to some of Russia's most contentious actions abroad.

In July this year, US Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 GRU officers, accusing them of interfering in the 2016 US presidential election.

The Bellingcat investigative team has linked the downing of MH17 in eastern Ukraine in 2014 with a GRU officer who it said "supervised the procurement and transport of weapons."

The agency has also been linked to an attempt to overthrow Montenegro's government on the eve of parliamentary elections in October, 2016.

GRU officers are believed to provide military guidance to the Syrian army as well as rebels in eastern Ukraine, among others.

In 2010, Putin famously said that Russian special services do not kill traitors, saying they "croak all by themselves."

He acknowledged that Soviet authorities deployed assassins to get rid of enemies, but said modern Russia no longer does so.

"Such units have been liquidated," he said.

Earlier this year, a former GRU chief, Fyodor Ladygin, speaking to the defence ministry's TV channel Zvezda, denied his agency's involvement.

"The Russian intelligence structure where I had the honour of serving for many years...never -- I repeat never -- did such vile, stupid things," he said.

Military analysts were hard-pressed to say whether the Main Intelligence Directorate could be behind the assassination attempt in the British cathedral city of Salisbury in March, when Russian former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned.

"I never heard about GRU being involved in political murders," independent security analyst Alexander Golts told AFP.

He suggested that "theoretically" someone could have acted on his own initiative to obtain promotion.

Another prominent military analyst,Pavel Felgenhauer, suggested the murder attempt with the use of Novichok, a military-grade nerve agent developed by the Soviet Union, was a collective effort involving several spy agencies.

"Such a decision would have been impossible without permission from the Kremlin," he told AFP.

"The goal of such an operation is to send a message to your own people: no mercy for the traitors and we don't care about the consequences for the country's image."

British police accuse GRU officers, identified as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, of trying to kill Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

Skripal, a former colonel in Russian military intelligence, was jailed for betraying agents to Britain's MI6 security service. He moved to England in 2010 as part of a spy swap.

Several top GRU agents have defected to the West in the past.

Vladimir Rezun, who defected in the 1970s, wrote a partly autobiographical book under the penname Viktor Suvorov. The book is entitled Aquarium, the nickname of the GRU headquarters in Moscow.

"What kind of fish swim there?" he asks his boss in the book. "There's only one kind there -- piranhas."
British authorities charge two men for their alleged involvement in a Novichok poisoning earlier in 2018, claiming the men are agents of the GRU.