DISINFO: No evidence of Russia's guilt in Skripal poisoning
SUMMARY
One year after the Skripal assassination attempt, there is still no evidence of Russia’s guilt. London, together with its Western partners, blames the Russian government for this. But evidence remains to be proven.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the Salisbury poisoning. The disinformation message was created as a series of inconsistencies, implying a UK government conspiracy behind the Skripal case (see previous case). British police have presented a solid chain of evidence about the Skripal case, including pictures, that connects the two suspects to particular locations in the case. Parts of the material have been released to the public. EU and the EU Member States have supported the conclusions of the British investigation. Bellingcat and the Insider can confirm definitively that both “Alexander Petrov” and “Ruslan Boshirov” are active GRU officers. This conclusion is based both on objective data and on discussions with confidential Russian sources familiar with the identity of either one of the two persons. Bellingcat can confirm the authenticity of the leaked passport file of “Boshirov”, and that it contains all three markings that helped identify “Petrov” as a security-service asset: “Top Secret” annotations, a blank biographical page referring to a secret attached letter, a “do not provide information” stamp, and issuing authority unit 777001, exclusively used for state VIPs and intelligence officers. In addition, “Boshirov” also has no recorded history prior to the issuance of his domestic ID passport in 2010 (2009 in “Petrov”’s case). Also, Novaya Gazeta pointed out that the phone number in one of the suspect's documents leads directly to the Ministry of Defence, under which the military intelligence operates.