According to investigative website Bellingcat, Denis Vyacheslavovich Sergeev – a graduate of Russia’s Military Diplomatic Academy – was also in Britain when former Russian spy Skripal was poisoned last year.
The identification of a third suspect comes after Bellingcat unmasked two other men as GRU agents behind the Novichok attack in Salisbury on March 4 last year.
Ex-KGB spy Skripal and his daughter Yulia, 33, were exposed to a nerve agent and fell gravely ill after having a pizza lunch in Salisbury on Sunday, March 4, 2018.
Anti-terror police investigated the poisoning and discovered the agent used was military-grade Novichok, made in Russia.
Then on June 30 a 44-year-old British woman was killed in nearby Amesbury after handling the perfume bottle believed to have been used by the suspects to contain the deadly nerve agent.
In October Belingcat named the first suspect as Ruslan Boshirov, whose real name is reportedly Colonel Anatoliy Chepig – a 39-year-old Russian soldier who served in both Chechnya and Ukraine.
His alleged partner was Alexander Petro – real name reportedly Alexander Yevgenyevich Mishkin – who in fact was a military doctor for the GRU.
When quizzed about their alleged involvement, the pair claimed they wanted to visit Wiltshire's pre-historic monument Stonehenge rather than carry out a state-sponsored execution on foreign soil.
Petrov said: "Of course, we went there to see Stonehenge, Old Sarum, but we couldn’t do it because there was muddy slush everywhere.
"The town was covered by this slush. We got wet, took the nearest train and came back (to London).”
Boshirov added: “We spent no more than an hour in Salisbury, mainly because of the lags between trains.
“Maybe we did (approach) Skripal’s house, but we don’t know where is it located.”
NEW SUSPECT UNMASKED
Now Bellingcat has revealed the true identity and background of this GRU officer, who operated internationally under the cover persona of Sergey Vyachaeslavovich Fedotov.
Bellingcat journalist Moritz Rakuszitzky writes: "At the end of 2017, Fedotov took a trip to Armenia.
"He stayed there between 23 December and 2 January 2018. Only a week later, he flew to Zurich on January 10 and returned from Geneva on 17 January 2018. This would be his last trip before the London visit during which the Skripals were poisoned.
"Travelling as “Fedotov”, Denis Sergeev arrived in London early in the morning of 2 March 2018, leaving Moscow at 7:00 on Aeroflot flight SU 2580. The other two suspects, Mishkin and Chepiga, would arrive on a later flight that afternoon.
"It is unclear what Fedotov’s role may have been, if any, in the preparation and execution of the poisoning operation. We could also not establish if he travelled to Salisbury on any of the days he was in the UK.
"He had booked a return flight on Aeroflot’s SU 2579 from Heathrow to Moscow in the afternoon of March 4, the day on which Sergey and Yuliya Skripal collapsed unconscious."
More to follow…
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