The BBC has been conducting a major investigation on Sergei Skripal to explain why Putin chose the timing of the attempt to kill him using a nerve agent.
Almost eight months after the poisoning in Salisbury of the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, the BBC has pieced together the extent to which he had been briefing foreign intelligence agencies before the attempt on his life.
Far from living quietly in retirement, Skripal had been travelling extensively across Europe and to the United States providing information to Western security services about Russian intelligence, including its alleged links with the mafia.
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The reporter has been to Prague, Czechia and Spain. Skripal is said to have given the Czech intelligence services the names of GRU agents in that country. He was also compiling a report on the links between Russian organised crime and their security services for a number of western countries. The link with Spain is particularly notable as another former Russian security operative had also started to reveal the links between the Russian mafie, GRU and Russian ex-patriots in Spain. He was Alexander Litvinenko who was fatally poisoned by Russian agents using polonium in November 2006.
Now there is no suggestion that a visit by Michael Cohen had anything to do with the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal. It is however notable that Skripal was giving information linking the Russian mafia and Putin’s government to US authorities and that the attack happened after the current US administration took office