One of the two men accused of poisoning an ex-Russian spy in the UK is a highly decorated colonel in the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency — who was honored by strongman Vladimir Putin in 2014, according to a British investigative group.
British authorities have named Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov as suspects in the Novichok nerve agent attack on former spook Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, but said these were likely aliases.
The Kremlin has strongly denied being involved in the incident.
Bellingcat, which scours the internet to expose Moscow’s involvement in foreign conflict, said Boshirov is actually Col. Anatoliy Vladimirovich Chepiga, 39, who in 2014 was awarded Russia’s highest medal, the Hero of the Russian Federation, likely for actions in Ukraine.
His name also appears on a monument honoring alumni of the prestigious Far-Eastern Military Command at its base on the border with China, the UK’s Telegraph reported.
Chepiga, who was born in 1979 in the village Nikolayevka, served in the special forces of the GRU after graduating from the military academy, and fought in Chechnya and possibly Ukraine, according to the news outlet.
The investigative group said it was “highly likely” that Putin — who this month claimed the two suspects are “civilians” — knows Chepiga because he personally hands out these awards.
Citing a former Russian military officer, Bellingcat said it was very surprising that a highly decorated colonel was sent into the field.
It “would imply that ‘the job was ordered at the highest level,'” the group quoted its source as saying, according to Agence France-Presse.
But other than a photo from Chepiga’s 2003 passport file resembling Boshirov, the report didn’t provide additional proof that Boshirov and Chepiga are the same person.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova dismissed the Bellingcat report, saying it was timed to coincide with British Prime Minister Theresa May’s address at the UN Security Council.
“There is no proof — so they are continuing their information campaign whose main task is to divert attention from the main question: WHAT HAPPENED IN SALISBURY?” Zakharova posted on Facebook late Wednesday.
“The question remains: when will any proof be provided of involvement of anyone in the Salisbury poisoning, as London calls it?”
The two suspects have insisted they were on holiday in Salisbury and had no connection with the attack.
Speaking on Wednesday, May assailed Moscow over the Skripals’ poisoning.
“Russia has only sought to obfuscate through desperate fabrication,” she said.
A Bellingcat journalist, who writes under the pseudonym Moritz Rakuszizky, said he believed the group would soon be able to identify the second suspect in the Skripal case.
“We believe based on the information we have gathered so far that he [Petrov] is a junior rank relative to Chepiga,” he told the BBC. “We think he is someone who is at the captain level or a senior lieutenant level.”
The Skripals survived the attack, as did a police officer, Nick Bailey, who became sick after responding to the scene — but Dawn Sturgess, 44, died July 8, after authorities said she and her boyfriend, Charlie Rowley, 48, had also been exposed to Novichok.
With Post wires
