What's happened
The inquiry into the 2018 poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal continues, revealing details about the Novichok nerve agent and its implications. Former police chief Neil Basu emphasized the recklessness of leaving such a weapon on foreign soil, while the investigation into Dawn Sturgess's death remains unresolved.
Why it matters
What the papers say
According to BBC News, Neil Basu described the Novichok nerve agent as a 'reckless disregard for human life,' emphasizing the challenges faced during the investigation. The Independent reported that Basu questioned whether the incident constituted an act of war, highlighting the severity of the situation. Both sources underscore the ongoing struggle for justice, as no one has been charged for Sturgess's death, despite the identification of suspects linked to the Kremlin.
How we got here
In March 2018, former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with Novichok in Salisbury, UK. Dawn Sturgess died months later after being exposed to the same nerve agent, concealed in a perfume bottle. The ongoing inquiry seeks to uncover the circumstances surrounding these events.
More on these topics
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Amesbury is a town and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. It is known for the prehistoric monument of Stonehenge which is within the parish.
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Novichok is a series of binary chemical weapons developed by the Soviet Union and Russia between 1971 and 1993. Russian scientists who developed the nerve agents claim they are the deadliest ever made, with some variants possibly five to eight times more
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Sergei Viktorovich Skripal is a former Russian military intelligence officer who acted as a double agent for the UK's intelligence services during the 1990s and early 2000s.
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Salisbury is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England, with a population of 40,302, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately 20 miles from Southampton and 30 miles from Bath.
Salisbury is in the southeast of Wiltshi
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The poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, also known as the Salisbury Poisonings, was a botched assassination attempt to poison Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military officer and double agent for the British intelligence agencies in the city of Salisb
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Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country located in Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. Covering an area of 17,125,200 square kilometres, it is the largest country in the world by area, spanning more than one-eighth of the Earth's in