Category Archives: Novichok poisonings

Novichok ‘found on water bottle in Alexei Navalny’s hotel room’

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Development suggests Russian opposition leader poisoned in Tomsk, not at airport

Associates of Alexei Navalny have said traces of novichok were found on a bottle of water in his hotel room in Tomsk, suggesting he was poisoned while in the Siberian city, and not, as previously suspected, from a cup of tea he drank at the airport.

The Russian opposition leader fell ill on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow on 20 August. The plane made an emergency landing in Omsk, where he spent two days in a coma before being flown by a medical jet to Berlin. He remains in the Charité hospital in the German capital.

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Alexei Navalny continues to improve, say German doctors

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Russian opposition leader taken off ventilator and can leave his bed, hospital reports

The Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been taken off a ventilator and is able to leave his bed for short periods of time, German doctors who have been treating him for novichok poisoning have said.

In a significant update, the Charité hospital in Berlin said Navalny’s condition “continues to improve” and hinted that he was able to talk. It said latest news of his health was made public after consultation with Navalny and his wife.

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Russia local elections: Navalny allies win council seats as Putin’s party claims victory

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Associates of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny celebrate victory in Siberia where he was poisoned

Allies of poisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny have said they have secured city council seats in Siberia as independent monitors condemned a reported “stream” of voting irregularities in regional polls.

In several dozen of the country’s 85 regions, Russians voted for regional governors and lawmakers in regional and city legislatures as well as in several by-elections for national MPs.

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Donald Trump claims US has not seen any proof of Alexei Navalny poisoning – video

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The US president declined to accept the German government's assessment that the Russian opposition leader was attacked with a nerve agent. This week the chancellor, Angela Merkel, revealed that tests at a military laboratory had identified unequivocally that the Kremlin critic had been poisoned with novichok

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Russia must answer ‘serious questions’ on Alexei Navalny novichok poisoning, says Nato – video

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Nato has condemned the poisoning of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny with the nerve agent novichok as a 'disrespect for human life' and 'breach of international norms'. 

Russia had serious questions to answer about the case, the secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said after reaching a unanimous agreement with Nato ambassadors

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Merkel pressured to end Nord Stream 2 support after Navalny poisoning

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German opposition calls on chancellor to use gas pipeline project to pressurise Kremlin

Angela Merkel is under growing domestic pressure to end her support for the joint German-Russian Nord Stream 2 pipeline project over the confirmed poisoning of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

The German Green party called on the chancellor to use the nearly completed infrastructure project to pressure the Kremlin into answering allegations over what Merkel called the “silencing” of Navalny with a novichok nerve reagent.

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RT loses challenge against claims of bias in novichok reporting

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Kremlin-backed channel fails to overturn Ofcom ruling that also related to Syria coverage

The Kremlin-backed news channel RT has lost a high court challenge to overturn a ruling by the UK media regulator that it broadcast biased programmes relating to the novichok poisoning in Salisbury and the war in Syria.

Ofcom fined RT £200,000 after determining that seven programmes, including two presented by the former MP George Galloway, were in breach of UK broadcasting rules relating to due impartiality regarding matters of political controversy.

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No change in UK’s stance on Salisbury attack, PM tells Putin

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Boris Johnson says during talks in Berlin there will be no normalisation of UK-Russia ties

Boris Johnson has told Vladimir Putin there will be no normalisation of the relationship between the UK and Russia, almost two years on from the Salisbury attack.

The pair met in Berlin on the sidelines of an international summit about the future of Libya. According to an account of the conversation released by Downing Street, Johnson stuck closely to the robust stance taken by Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May.

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Rise in number of world’s rich buying UK ‘golden visas’

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Increase comes despite clampdown on scheme after Skripal novichok poisoning

The number of wealthy foreigners investing at least £2m in the UK in exchange for a “golden visa” has risen to a five-year high, despite a clampdown on the scheme in the aftermath of the Skripal novichok poisoning attack.

The Home Office granted 255 people tier-1 investor visas in the first half of 2019, allowing them to live and work in the UK for five years. This was the most in a six-month period since 2014, according to the department’s data.

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‘Despicable act’: May confronts Putin over Salisbury poisoning

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PM addresses Russian leader at G20 over ‘wider pattern of unacceptable behaviour’


Theresa May has upbraided Vladimir Putin for the Salisbury poisoning, calling it a “truly despicable act”, during a frosty one-to-one meeting at the G20 summit in Osaka that is likely to be their last encounter.

After exchanging a handshake, during which May appeared stern, the pair held the first half of their 80-minute meeting alone, with only translators in the room.

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Emergency services scrap £900k of vehicles after Salisbury attack

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Police and ambulance units replaced 24 cars, vans and 4x4s due to novichok contamination

Emergency services spent hundreds of thousands of pounds scrapping and replacing contaminated vehicles after the Salisbury nerve agent poisonings, it has been revealed.

Police and ambulance services had to destroy 24 cars, vans and 4x4 vehicles following the attack on the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. The pair collapsed after coming into contact with novichok at Skripal’s home in Salisbury on 4 March last year. DS Nick Bailey, 39, was also taken to hospital.

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Skripal poisoning suspects received mystery phone call following attack

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Detectives think pair may have been awaiting signal that operation had been successful before returning home

The Russian men suspected of poisoning Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury received a phone call after returning to London on the day of the alleged attack, raising the possibility that a backup team played a role in the operation.

One theory being considered by investigators is whether the call, which has not been disclosed before, was a signal to tip them off that the operation had been a success.

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Trump wrote off novichok attack of defector as ‘spy games’ – report

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Trump reportedly wrote off Skripal poisoning as business as usual among spies and was at first reluctant to expel 60 Russians

Donald Trump was reluctant to expel suspected Russian spies after the novichok chemical weapons attack in Salisbury, viewing the poisoning of a defector as “part of legitimate spy games”, according to a new report.

According to the New York Times, Trump reacted sceptically to a British request in March 2018 for a strong punitive response to the use of the nerve agent against the former spy, Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. A local resident, Dawn Sturgess, was killed three months later when she came in contact with the chemical.

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‘The whole world knows us’: Salisbury one year on from novichok attack

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Some talk of anxiety following the Skripal poisoning, yet the city is determined to move on

A year after the nerve agent attack on Salisbury, Jason Regent is still startled by the sound of sirens.

“Every time I hear an ambulance I think: ‘Is it happening again?’” says Regent, who runs a tailoring shop in the city. “I’m a little bit scarred. It was like being in a film with all the helicopters clattering overhead.

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Salisbury officially ruled safe 12 months after Skripal poisoning

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Huge and hazardous military clean-up operation on 12 sites comes to an end

The city of Salisbury has been judged safe almost 12 months after the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal was poisoned with the nerve agent novichok.

The former spy’s house and 11 other potentially infected sites will be officially ruled safe on Friday following a huge and hazardous clean-up.

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Russian flag hung on Salisbury Cathedral year after novichok attack

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Staff have since removed flag hung on scaffolding before anniversary of poisoning of Skripals

A Russian flag was hung briefly from scaffolding on Salisbury Cathedral on Saturday night, almost a year after the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with novichok in the city. The flag was taken down on Sunday after cathedral staff were made aware of it.

It is thought that someone climbed the scaffolding and put the flag there during the hours of darkness. The first anniversary of the nerve agent attack on Skripal, 67, and his daughter Yulia, 33, who were discovered collapsed on a park bench in the city centre, will fall on 4 March.

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Novichok victim Dawn Sturgess’s parents tell of their anger and hurt

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Exclusive: Family break silence to express concerns that UK settled former spy in Salisbury

The parents of the woman who died in the Wiltshire novichok poisonings have broken their silence to express their anger and hurt at losing their daughter in an extraordinary international incident and say they believe there could be more of the nerve agent yet to be found.

Speaking as the first anniversary of the poisonings nears, Stan and Caroline Sturgess also revealed their concerns that the UK authorities chose to settle the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, exposing residents to risk.

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Salisbury poisoning: website says it has identified third GRU suspect

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Denis Sergeyev named as involved in suspected poisoning in Bulgaria in 2015 by website Bellingcat

A third suspect linked to the poisoning of the former Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury has been identified as a high-ranking officer in Russian military intelligence by the investigative website Bellingcat.

Bellingcat reported that Denis Sergeyev, a graduate of the Military Diplomatic Academy, a training ground for intelligence officers, is the real identity of a man operating under the cover persona of Sergey Fedotov.

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Skripal poisoning: UK team looks into possible Bulgarian case link

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Bulgarian PM says UK team is on ground to investigate suspected poisoning of local arms dealer

A team of British investigators is in Bulgaria looking into whether the 2015 suspected poisoning of a local arms dealer has links to the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter last year in Salisbury.

“There is a British team here on the ground,” Bulgaria’s prime minister, Boyko Borisov, told the Guardian in an interview in Sofia. “They are jointly conducting an investigation with Bulgarian law enforcement authorities.”

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