A UK investigative group on Wednesday said it has identified one of the two suspects in the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, England, as a highly decorated colonel in the Russian military intelligence agency GRU.
The group, Bellingcat, said that the suspect, whose passport name was Ruslan Boshirov, is in fact Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga, who in 2014 was awarded Russia’s highest medal, the Hero of Russia.
However, beyond a photograph from Chepiga’s 2003 passport file resembling Boshirov, the report did not present further proof that Boshirov and Chepiga are the same person.
The UK has charged Boshirov and another suspect, Alexander Petrov, with on March 4 trying to kill Russian Skripal and his daughter with the Soviet-designed nerve agent Novichok.
Britain has said that the attack received approval “at a senior level of the Russian state,” an accusation that Moscow has fiercely denied.
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova rejected Bellingcat’s claim, saying on Facebook that it is part of an “information campaign” against Russia.
Bellingcat relies on social media and open sources in its investigations. The group has heavily focused on Russia, exposing its military activities in Ukraine, Syria and elsewhere.
Earlier this month, the two Russian men appeared on the Russian state-funded RT channel, saying that they visited Salisbury as tourists and had nothing to do with Skripal’s poisoning.
They denied British claims that they were Russian military intelligence officers, saying that they work in the nutritional supplements business.
Bellingcat said it received tips from former Russian military officers and used photographs of graduates of military academies.
The group found a man resembling Boshirov in a group shot and then rummaged through leaked official databases to find personal details, it said.
It identified the man as Chepiga and eventually tracked down his passport file, dated 2003, with a picture bearing a strong resemblance to Boshirov.
The group said that Chepiga served several stints in Chechnya, where Russian forces were fighting Muslim rebels.
Chepiga’s passport file recorded his service with a Russian military unit that was part of the GRU’s special forces, it said.
The group said that Chepiga’s military school listed him among graduates bestowed with the Hero of Russia award in December 2014, adding that the data signaled that he likely received the medal for his actions in eastern Ukraine.
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