Vladimir Putin personally ordered the Salisbury Novichok poisonings, the UK government and one of the victims told an inquiry into the attack today.
Former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal, who offered up Moscow secrets to the UK and his daughter Yulia fell unconscious back in 2018 after touching the nerve agent which had been placed on the front door handle of their home.
Both of them, along with a police officer who went to visit them, fell critically ill but recovered.
Four months later, a member of the public, Dawn Sturgess, died after being exposed to the poison after her partner found a counterfeit perfume bottle which authorities believe was used to smuggle the nerve agent in.
Her partner also fell ill but recovered.
Skripal, who has not spoken publicly since the incident, sent a statement to the inquiry into Sturgess’s death today which pinned the blame squarely on the Russian president.
He said: “I believe Putin makes all important decisions himself. I therefore think he must have at least given permission for the attack.”
He added: “I have read that Putin is personal[ly] very interested in poison and likes reading books about it.”
However, Skripal admitted he had no concrete evidence to back up his claim.
“I do not know for certain how Putin personally viewed me. As far as I know I never spoke to him, although I was in the same room as him two times many years ago,” he said.
He added: “I never thought the Russian regime would try to murder me in Great Britain”.
A senior foreign office official, Jonathan Allen, also gave a statement to the inquiry suggesting the UK government had come to a similar conclusion based on “current assessments”.
“In light of the required seniority under Russian law to approve assassinations of suspected terrorists outside Russia, and that this incident concerned a politically sensitive target (Mr Skripal was a UK citizen, and was targeted on UK soil), it is HMG’s view that President Putin authorised the operation,” Allen’s statement read.
Three Russians – and alleged GRU military intelligence officers – have been charged in absentia by the UK over the attempted murder of the Skripals, although all three deny it, along with the Kremlin.
No formal case has been brought against them over Sturgess’s death.
Lawyers for her family called for Putin not to “cower behind the walls of the Kremlin” and to look her relatives “in the eyes and answer the evidence against him”.
However the legal representatives acknowledged the chances of that were “very very small”, seeing as there is an International Criminal Court arrest warrant out for Putin over his alleged involvement in the abduction of Ukrainian children in the regional war.