UK Edition
Russian agents learn from Litvinenko errors to devise hit on Sergei Skripal that leaves police baffled
Russian intelligence learnt from the Alexander Litvinenko murder to devise a near perfect assassination method that has left British police still puzzled over how Sergei and Yulia Skripal were poisoned.
British authorities are increasingly convinced that Colonel Skripal was exposed to nerve agent planted in the luggage of his daughter Yulia who was visiting from Moscow.
But they remain unclear of the precise method of delivery and when in Salisbury they were poisoned - known as the ‘ground zero’ for the attack.
One well placed source said: “We don’t know where ‘ground zero’ is. We are just guessing at the moment.”
A second source said the Novichok nerve agent was delivered in the form of a gel - rather than powder or gas - that transferred to the skin of the Skripals, delaying the effects of the poisoning for several hours.
They have discounted the theory that the nerve agent was somehow released into the air vents of Col Skripal’s car.
One source said the Russian FSB appeared to have learnt from the mistakes made in the murder of Litvinenko in 2006 and how to cover its tracks.
That includes devising a method of delivering nerve agent planted in luggage without the need for an assassination squad to be deployed on the ground in the UK.
In the murder of Litvinenko, his assassins left a trial of radioactive polonium 210 across London including in their hotel rooms, a hotel bar where he was poisoned, in several restaurants, a lap-dancing club and on two aircraft on which the killers travelled.
The source said: “The luggage is looking increasingly likely. This all happened in less than 24 hours after Yulia arrived in the UK. Sergei wasn’t in hiding so they didn’t need to wait for Yulia to arrive. She unwittingly brought it with her planted in the suitcase.
“There wasn’t a hit squad on the ground. I really think they have learned from Litvinenko. His killers took a British Airways flight.
“They were mixing the chemicals and leaving traces everywhere. With the attempted murder of Skripal everything has been done back in Russia where they have complete control.”
Col Skripal, 66, and his 33-year-old daughter remain in intensive care fighting for their lives.
Security experts believe only a minuscule amount of nerve agent was required and that Skripals were not even aware they had touched it in gel form.
The theory is it could have been left in a small pot in her luggage and later opened, or smeared on an item inside the bag, making it harder for experts to track the source definitively.
Because both Mr Skripal and his daughter were able to walk around the town before collapsing on a bench experts believe the Novichok agent must have been delivered in gel form because it took time to kick in.
They believe it is unlikely that the nerve agent was delivered by an operative or by a complex system installed in Mr Skripal’s car because of the likelihood the person involved would also have been exposed.
Security and chemical experts are now working back from where the couple were found to try and isolate the source of the agent, although a source told this newspaper that they have so far been unable to confirm where the attack took place.
Col Skripal was convicted of spying for Britain and jailed but later released in a spy swap in 2010, moving to Salisbury with his family.