Vladimir Putin is ‘morally responsible’ for the death of Dawn Sturgess – at the hands of Novichok brought from Russia to the UK in a Nina Ricci perfume bottle, a new report has found.
When the 44-year-old unknowingly sprayed herself with the military-grade nerve agent before collapsing in a flat in Amesbury, in Wiltshire, she did not know she had been caught in the crossfire of an ‘outrageous’ deliberate attack on UK soil – orchestrated by the Kremlin.
The British government previously blamed Russia for the assassination attempt on former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in Salisbury in March 2018.
But now the Dawn Sturgess inquiry – which was ordered by former home secretary Priti Patel in 2021 and held over seven weeks between October and December last year – has backed up this belief, concluding today that the Russian president authorised this attack.
Rt Hon Lord Hughes, who is behind the long-awaited inquiry into Sturgess, said: ‘Petrov, Boshirov and Fedotov were members of an operational team within the GRU – the Russian intelligence military agency responsible for foreign intelligence gathering.
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‘I am sure that, in conducting their attack on Sergei Skripal, they were acting on instructions.
‘I have concluded that the operation to assassinate Skripal must have been authorised at the highest level, bypresident Putin.
‘All those involved in the assassination attempt – not only Petrov, Boshirov and Fedotov, but also those who sent them, and anyone else giving authorisation… were morally responsible for Dawn Sturgess’ death.
‘Deploying a highly toxic nerve agent in a busy city was an astonishingly reckless act.
‘The risk that others beyond the intended target, Sergei Skripal, might be killed or injured was entirely foreseeable.
‘The risk was entirely magnified by leaving a bottle of Novichok disguised as perfume in the city.’
Both of the Skripals survived the poisoning and so did Sturgess’ boyfriend Charlie Rowley, who had unwittingly given her the bottle containing ‘enough poison to kill thousands of people’.
All members of the Russian GRU military intelligence squad are unlikely to ever face justice – and did not give evidence at the closed-doors inquiry – as the Russian constitution does not allow the extradition of its citizens it is unlikely they will ever stand trial.
The two main suspects previously gave an interview with Russian state media, which they said they were only in the UK, briefly, to visit Salisbury Cathedral.
The attack on the ex-Russian military intelligence officer was ‘deliberate’.
Lord Hughes confirmed there is a ‘clear connection’ between Skripal and Russia, and a motive to assassinate him after he was arrested for spying on behalf of the UK, after being recruited as a double agent.
‘There is no evidence to suggest that anyone else had a motive to kill him,’ the report said.
Previous Russian allegations that the scheme was orchestrated by the UK government to ‘cast public blame on Russia’ does not ‘hold water’, it was added.
The report added: ‘The evidence that this was a Russian state attack is overwhelming.
‘The attack on Skripal by Russia was not designed simply as revenge, but amounted to a public statement, for both international and domestic consumption, that Russia willact decisively in what it regards as its own interests.’
Sturgess’ partner gifted her a small bottle of what was labelled as a Nina Ricci perfume – which the inquiry believes was where the Russian agents stored Novichok and used to douse Skripal’s front door.
Using the pump, she sprayed it on her wrists. She may have also inhaled some of the vapours of the substance.
Hours later, she fell seriously ill. More than a week later on July 8, she was dead.
The cause was determined to be hypoxic ischaemic brain injury and intracranial brain haemorrhage – all attributed to the Novichok poisoning.
At an early stage of the inquiry, the victim’s family questioned whether her life could have been saved.
The inquiry decided that she received ‘entirely appropriate medical care’ – from ambulance staff and doctors at the hospital – and that there was no chance that she could have survived.
Lord Hughes stressed: ‘Looking back, I am sure that no medical treatment could in fact have saved her life.’
He later added: ‘She was sadly beyond recovery before any first responders were able to reach her.’
Multiple state failings were set out in the report – from the management of Skirpal as an exchanged ex-prisoner to the training of emergency services who were dispatched to Sturgess’ flat in the hours after she was poisoned.
Lord Hughes determined that the government failed to conduct ‘sufficient, regular’ written assessments about the risk of an attack on his life directed from the top echelons of the Kremlin.
He added: ‘But I do not think that the assessment that Skripal was not at a significant risk of assassination by Russian personnel can be said to have been unreasonable, although… events demonstrated that it was wrong.’
The former Russian military intelligence officer – who acted as a double agent for the UK during the 1990s and early 2000s – could only have been saved from the assassination attempt if the government had given him an entirely new identity and hidden him, severing all contact with his family.
The inquiry added: ‘As of 2018, the risk was not so severe as to demand such far-reaching precautions.’
After the attack in Salisbury, chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) training to personnel was ‘appropriate’ and ‘it could and should have been more widely circulated.’
On March 2, 2018, three Russian travellers flew from Moscow to London – Alexander Petrov, Ruslan Boshirov and Sergey Fedotov – aliases intended to conceal that they were deployed by the Kremlin.
The inquiry confirmed that their real identities are Aleksandr Mishkin, Anatoliy Chepiga and Denis Sergeev.
Both Petrov and Boshirov were aware that others might also touch the door handle to Sergei Skripal’s front door – particularly his daughter, Yulia, who was staying at the house at the time.
The assassins brought with them to Salisbury the ‘Nina Ricci’ bottle with Novichok made in Russia, and later threw it away before fleeing Salisbury on March 4.
Both had ‘no regard’ for the death that followed, the inquiry determined.
Lord Hughes of Ombersley has published his 170-page report into the death of Dawn Sturgess who was killed by the Russian nerve agent.
Her death came months after former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, his daughter Yulia and police officer Nick Bailey were also poisoned.
Here is a timeline of events:
March 4, 2018: Former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, are found unconscious on a park bench in Salisbury, Wiltshire.
March 7: Police say a nerve agent was used to poison the pair and the case is being treated as attempted murder.
March 8: Home secretary Amber Rudd says Wiltshire Police officer Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey is seriously ill in hospital.
March 12: Prime minister Theresa May tells the Commons the nerve agent Novichok is of Russian origin.
June 30: Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley fall ill at a flat in Muggleton Road, Amesbury, eight miles from Salisbury.
July 4: Police declare a ‘major incident’ after revealing Sturgess and Rowley have been exposed to an ‘unknown substance’, later confirmed to be Novichok.
July 8: Sturgess dies in hospital and a murder investigation is launched.
September 4: Independent investigator the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons confirms the toxic chemical that killed Sturgess was the same nerve agent as the one that poisoned the Skripals.
September 5: Scotland Yard and the Crown Prosecution Service say there is sufficient evidence to charge two Russians, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, with offences including conspiracy to murder. Petrov’s real identity is believed to be Alexander Mishkin, who worked as a doctor for Russian military intelligence service the GRU, while Boshirov’s real identity is believed to be Anatoliy Vladimirovich Chepiga.
September 12: Russian President Vladimir Putin says there is ‘nothing criminal’ about Petrov and Boshirov.
October 14 2024: The Dawn Sturgess Inquiry begins public hearings in Salisbury before later continuing in London.
December 2: The hearings conclude.
December 4 2025: Lord Hughes publishes his report.
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Vladimir Putin has moved on from ‘revenge hits’ to pursuing his war aims on the streets of the UK, according to a seasoned intelligence expert.
Kevin Riehle said that Russia’s priorities for covert activity are supporting the all-out attack on Ukraine and ‘increasing fear’ among opponents.
As the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry concludes, the lecturer in in intelligence and international security gave his take on the Kremlin’s shadow games.
He gave ‘zero chance’ that the Salisbury culprits will be brought to justice, but said the final report ‘sends a message’, with the related expulsion of Russian diplomats forcing the Kremlin to use less reliable proxies.
Since the hit on the Skripals in 2018, during which Ms Sturgess, 44, was fatally exposed to Novichok, Russia has switched focus from using its own people to recruiting foreign nationals via mediums such as Telegram.
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Mr Riehle, of Brunel University, University of London, said: ‘Russia has recently had some success in recruiting people who are willing to listen to their side of the story, examples include the Reform politician Nathan Gill in Wales and the arson attack in East London.
‘But for the most part they are the exception, there are probably more people in the UK who are sympathetic to Ukraine.
‘Their diplomatic mission is probably under heavy intelligence pressure so they haven’t had the freedom in the UK to operate as they would like.
‘The fact they are having to reach out via channels such as Telegram means they are having a hard time meeting people in person.’
The UK expelled 23 Russian diplomats in the wake of the Salisbury nerve agent attack, an attempted hit on retired Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal, which left him and his daughter, Yulia, in hospital.
Although the pair survived, Ms Sturgess, 44, died after spraying herself with Novichok contained in a discarded perfume bottle.
UK counter-terror police have identified three suspects working for the GRU military intelligence service, but the evidence points to the involvement of a wider network.
Without spies or other actors working under official cover, intelligence experts believe the Kremlin’s spymasters are recruiting outsiders.
Cases have included the Bulgarian spy ring and the Wagner group-directed attack on a warehouse in East London being used to supply humanitarian aid and StarLink satellite equipment to Ukraine.
‘Russia’s first aim is to support the war in Ukraine; it is the driving national security priority right now,’ the US national security community veteran said. ‘The second goal is to silence opposition to Russia.
‘Most of the missions undertaken by the Bulgarians convicted in the UK were directed against opposition figures in the UK and some overseas.
‘Dylan Earl, the warehouse arson plotter, had a follow-up assignment he didn’t have a chance to fulfil against a Russian opposition figure in the UK as well. The aim is to increase fear in the minds of anyone, particularly from Russia, who opposes Russia’s actions.
‘These are direct extensions of how Russian intelligence and security services operate inside their own borders.
‘A less successful mission is to convince internal and external audiences that Russia is winning the war. It is harder to do that in the UK than say Hungary or Austria.’
Earl, from Leicestershire, told a Wagner operative he met on Telegram that he was keen to carry out ‘missions’ beginning with the arson attack.
MI5 director Ken McCallum has warned in a speech of Russian agents or proxies being ‘on a sustained mission to generate mayhem’ in Britain, including ‘arson, sabotage and more.’
‘They are having to reach using remote channels like Telegram because they are having a hard time doing it in person,’ Mr Riehle said of the Kremlin’s spooks.
‘There are people who can be reached but the downside is that Russia doesn’t really know who it’s dealing with.
‘They can do research but they don’t have the same vetting process on a forum as they would in a face-to-face meeting.
‘Frankly, if I were working in counter-intelligence I would be flooding those channels with people I control. The opportunity for double agents in that system is very high.’
The Sturgess Inquiry’s chair, Lord Hughes, published his final report at midday, four years after it was set up. While the Kremlin’s activities have been exposed much as they were in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, Mr Riehle is emphatic about the chances of justice.
‘There’s zero chance,’ he said. ‘The people who carried that out are Russian military intelligence officers, and they are not going to be extradited.
‘Sending a message that we know who you are and recognise the absolutely egregious operation you ran is good, but we’ll never see them again. It’s a message more than it is a legal indictment.’
Mr Riehle views the Skripal operation as a ‘revenge hit’ that was outside Russia’s more formalised strategy for targeting opponents overseas.
‘My view is that Russia seldom conducts assassinations as a formal intelligence mission. Litvinenko and Skripal and a few others abroad were clearly supported by the intelligence services, but political assassinations outside Russia are rare. They are hard to do, they take a lot of work, but with Litvinenko and Skripal it was a different story.
‘Why them? Because they are traitors as in Russia’s eyes, those were revenge hits of people who directly acted against their fellow officers.
‘But of the other Russian people who have died in questionable circumstances, it is not unusual for them to have had multiple enemies, not just the Russian government, and they may have been involved in criminal things, including with Russian criminal groups.’
Mr Litvinenko’s widow, Marina, marked the 17th anniversary of his death on November 23 and expressed her thanks to the British people for the support they have shown her in the years since the killing.
She told Metro: ‘Starting in 2010, the coalition and then Conservative governments tried to rebuild a relationship with Russia.
‘It only gave Putin and his agents a stronger platform to carry out their activities in the UK. Now there is a situation where there are agents who are not trained, such as in the GRU or FSB, but whose minds have been poisoned by propaganda or who might have been hired for money.
‘They might even be British citizens. This is part of a cyber war against British society, it is all about destabilisation.’
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