Britain to lay out case against Moscow at UN with May saying suspects were GRU officers

Britain will seek to intensify diplomatic pressure on Vladimir Putin after naming two Russian military intelligence officers it said were ordered to carry out the novichok poisoning attack in Salisbury.

In a special statement to a packed House of Commons, the prime minister, Theresa May, revealed the two suspects who flew into Britain to murder Sergei and Yulia Skripal in March with the military grade nerve agent were officers in the GRU, Russian military intelligence.

“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,” she said, apparently pointing the finger at Putin.

The UK will on Thursday appear before the UN security council to lay out the case against Moscow. For six months since the incident in Salisbury, the government has faced criticism over the apparent lack of evidence linking the crime to Russia.

But on Wednesday, Britain’s most senior counter-terrorism officer, assistant commissioner Neil Basu, 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.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Picture released by police of Ruslan Boshirov (left) and Alexander Petrov. Photograph: HO/AFP/Getty Images

Basu said the pair, who are charged with conspiracy to murder, entered Britain 48 hours before the assassination attempt travelling on official Russian passports issued in the false names they used. They were named by British police as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, believed to be aliases.

British prosecutors said there was enough evidence to charge the Russian pair with conspiracy to murder Sergei Skripal, himself a former GRU officer who sold Russian secrets to Britain before settling in Salisbury, Wiltshire.

Police produced CCTV footage of the Russian assassination team during their 50-hour visit to Britain, entering at Gatwick airport at 3pm on Friday 2 March, and smuggling in the novichok.

They travelled in London first on public transport, and stayed at a budget east London hotel. They took a train to Salisbury on Saturday for reconnaissance before returning to London.

The casually dressed pair were then captured on Sunday 4 March back in Salisbury near to Skripal’s home just before they are alleged to have smeared the highly toxic nerve agent on the front door – a method of delivering novichok May said Russia had researched.

Public health officials said the danger to the public, especially in the hotel and on the Aeroflot flights they used to fly to and leave Britain, was low and no one else was believed to have been affected there.

Prosecutors also said there was enough evidence to charge Petrov and Boshirov with the attempted murder of the Skripals and the Wiltshire police officer Nick Bailey, who fell ill after going to the Skripal home after the Russian pair were found slumped on a bench in Salisbury.

The alleged GRU agents were further charged with the use and possession of novichok, contrary to the chemical weapons act. They are also charged with causing grievous bodily harm with intent to Yulia Skripal and Bailey.

The two Russian suspects have not been charged with the later poisoning that killed Dawn Sturgess and left Charlie Rowley seriously ill. The British couple became unwell on 30 June at a home in Amesbury, Wiltshire. They are believed to have been unwitting targets of the Russian plot and police say both incidents are being linked.

Police revealed that Rowley believed he came across a box which he thought contained perfume in a charity bin on Wednesday 27 June. Inside was a Nina Ricci perfume box, bottle and applicator.

Visual guide: how the novichok suspects made their way to Salisbury Read more

Rowley has told police he put the bottle and applicator together on the day he and Sturgess were poisoned by novichok. Rowley says Sturgess put some of the substance inside the bottle on her wrists and then fell fatally ill. Tests on the bottle recovered from his home showed it contained novichok.

Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were targeted with novichok on Sunday 4 March, after the Russian pair allegedly placed novichok on their front door from a specially modified perfume bottle.

On Wednesday, May told MPs that while the police investigation had identified the two individuals who executed the plan, investigations by Britain’s security and intelligence agencies pointed to wider and state-backed plot.

She said: “Based on this work, I can today tell the house that, 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.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Police stand guard outside the City Stay hotel in east London where the Russian suspects are said to have stayed. Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA

Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said: "The names published by the media, like the photographs, don’t mean anything to us.” Zakharova said she “again urged Britain to refrain from public accusations” and work with Russian law enforcement authorities to investigate the attack in Salisbury.

Britain knows it has little chance of ever bringing the two suspects to justice. Russia’s constitution bans extradition of its nationals to foreign states and Britain has not formally requested it do so because it would be pointless.

Britain says it will turn private intelligence gathered by its intelligence agencies into a campaign to highlight hostile Russian activities, which May said included the illegal annexation of Crimea, cyber-espionage, election interference and the downing of the MH17 passenger plane.

The prime minister said the UK would “deploy the full range of tools from across our national security apparatus” to counter the GRU.

Diplomatically, May said she wanted the EU to follow the lead of the US and extend sanctions to those Russians responsible for the use of chemical weapons, adding that it was something that the bloc had agreed in principle. She also called for fresh sanctions against those responsible for cyber-attacks and human rights violations.

Police believe Rowley and Sturgess came across the bottle containing novichok discarded by the Russian assassination team. Basu said: “We do not believe Dawn and Charlie were deliberately targeted, but became victims as a result of the recklessness in which such a toxic nerve agent was disposed of. We know that novichok was applied to the Skripals’ front door in an area that is accessible to the public, which also endangered the lives of members of the public and emergency service responders.”

Timeline Skripal suspects' UK visit Show Hide Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov arrived at Gatwick airport at 3pm, having flown in from Moscow on an Aeroflot flight. It is believed they then took a train to London, arriving at Victoria station at around 5.40pm. The pair then travelled on public transport to Waterloo station and were in that area between 6pm and 7pm. They then went to the City Stay hotel in Bow Road, east London, where they would stay for two nights. They left the hotel in the morning and took the tube to Waterloo, arriving at around midday. They then caught a train to Salisbury, arriving at around 2.25pm. Police have said they believe this trip was to inspect the Salisbury area. The pair left Salisbury at around 4.10pm and arrived back in Bow at 8.05pm. Petrov and Boshirov made the same journey as on the previous day, arriving at Waterloo station at approximately 8.05am and continuing on to Salisbury. CCTV footage shows them in the vicinity of Sergei Skripal’s house, and police believe this is when they contaminated the front door with novichok. The pair then left Salisbury and returned to Waterloo at around 4.45pm. From there they caught the tube to Heathrow airport and returned to Moscow on an Aeroflot flight departing at 10.30pm. Police have said there is no evidence they re-entered the UK after that date.

Two days before May accused the Russian military intelligence officers of the attack, Putin signed a presidential decree making information about freelance agents who carry out work for the country’s foreign intelligence agencies a state secret.

According to one unconfirmed Russian media report, little is known about the two suspects, both of whom have no significant presence on social media or official record. Boshirov, 40, was allegedly born in Dushanbe, in the former Soviet republic of Tajikstan, the Fontanka news agency reported.

Fontanka suggested the almost complete lack of public information about the pair supported the view of the UK government and its security agencies that the names were assumed identities.

Boshirov is registered at an address in central Moscow but nobody who lives in the apartment block said they recognised him, it added. Even less is known about Petrov, 39, who is listed as an employee of a Moscow-based company that produced immunological drugs.

Fontanka appeared to confirm claims by the Metropolitan police that the men had used their Russian passports before. It said the pair travelled regularly to Europe between September 2016 and March 2018, including trips to Amsterdam, Geneva, Milan and – repeatedly – Paris. Petrov visited London between 28 February and 5 March 2017, the agency said, citing its own unnamed sources.

It said their passports had near consecutive serial numbers, differing only by the last digit – one ending 1297, the other 1294. They purchased return tickets from London to Moscow for both Sunday 4 March – the day the Skripals were poisoned in Salisbury – and Monday 5 March. Boshirov and Petrov took the first of the two flights.