The Salisbury spy poisonings five years on: Did UK’s response change Putin’s pathway to invading Ukraine?
When Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a bench in Salisbury city centre – five years ago to this day – few would have known that a huge diplomatic crisis was about to erupt.
Mr Skripal, a former Russian intelligence officer turned British double agent, had been targeted with the deadly nerve agent novichok in an assassination attempt, which Western officials have since claimed leads all the way back to the Kremlin.
Though the pair survived the attack, Dawn Sturgess, a mother-of-three who came into contact with the nerve agent from a discarded perfume bottle, thought to have been used by the assassins to administer to the door handle of the Skripals’ home, later died from her exposure to the chemical.
The incident sparked a huge diplomatic row between the UK and Russia, which denied any involvement in the incident, even after UK intelligence forces shared details of two Russian men alleged to have carried out the attack.
Yulia and Sergei Skripal
Dawn Sturgess
A famously frosty meeting between the UK’s then-prime minister, Theresa May, and Russian president Vladimir Putin followed, while Britain expelled 23 diplomats and imposed some limited financial sanctions on assets that “threatened life or property”.
It was, at the time, the strongest response in relation to Putin’s Russia.
According to Keir Giles, an expert in security issues relating to Russia, it was also a significant step up from the “feeble response” to the poisoning of another former Russian agent, Alexander Litvinenko, in London in 2006.
Mr Giles, and senior consulting fellow at Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, told Sky News: “The response to Salisbury was a success story for the UK. It was about as powerful as it could be.
“The UK managed to rally behind it huge solidarity from the West.”
Theresa May meets Vladimir Putin
He said one key decision which would have particularly troubled Putin was the naming and shaming of the two alleged assassins, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, who both denied involvement.
“Putin would have likely hoped for these actions to have been undetected. Suddenly, everybody knows about it and there is no secrecy to it,” Mr Giles added.
Despite this, novichok was used again, against Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who fell ill during a flight to Moscow in 2020. He later recovered.
The UK’s response to the alleged Russian aggression also did little to dissuade Putin from launching an invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
“The UK’s response would have had no effect on Putin’s conclusion and is independent of Russia’s situation with the invasion of Ukraine.
Alexander Litvinenko
“It is a completely different issue in Russia – because Salisbury is really about dealing with a former Russian intelligence officer in the UK.”
The war, he said, was instead about satisfying Putin’s longer-term ambition to restore Russia as an imperial power on the world stage.
However, he said the response to Salisbury would have had an impact, particularly on Putin’s confidence to attempt other similar assassinations in the UK.
“There are risks (to these incidents) and these would have to be weighed against the benefit of carrying out a successful attempt.
“The UK’s response to Salisbury would have raised that risk.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Theresa May says the men identified as suspects in the Salisbury poisonings are from Russia’s military intelligence service.
Professor Tomila Lankina, a professor of international relations at London School of Economics (LSE), who has analysed disinformation campaigns in the wake of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and aggression in Ukraine, also believes the UK’s strong response to the Salisbury poisonings would have surprised Putin.
“If you look at the Litvinenko poisoning, the responses should have been more robust, but I remember being impressed by the response to Salisbury,” she said.
Click to subscribe to the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts
“Probably the kind of confidence Russia had to carry out the poisoning was preventable if the UK had more strong and forceful reactions to Russia’s past transgressions.
“But I remember being impressed by the response to Salisbury. I think it would have surprised Putin.”
Read more:
How the Salisbury poisoning unfolded – a timeline
Salisbury still affected by ‘trauma’ of novichok poisonings
Podcast: The poisoning five years on
But Professor Lankina, whose book The Estate Origins Of Democracy In Russia looks into the social structures of Russia, believes more could have been done.
“There was a dependency on Russian money, businesses who were advantaged and benefited from Russian money.”
She said she believed there was an indirect pathway between the events of the Litvinenko and Salisbury poisonings and the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
However, she said this pathway would more likely have been broken if the West’s reaction was stronger in the wake of Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Professor Svetlana Stephenson, a Russian-born academic living in the UK and working for London Metropolitan University, said she also believed the Salisbury poisonings were in part due to Russia believing it could act without serious repercussions.
“I don’t think that Russia would have wanted the incident to be detected. But when they did, the response was a tacit acknowledgement,” said Prof Stephenson, who has written critical articles about Putin in the country’s independent newspaper, Novaya Gazeta.
“Part of that messaging was that ‘we can do what we like’.
“In Russia, it would have just been seen as a security services situation, simply Russians dealing with someone they regard as a traitor, rather than an attack on UK soil.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Putin boosting nuclear forces
Prof Stephenson believes, for this reason, that the Salisbury attack would have had little impact on Putin’s confidence in any confrontation with the West.
“When the war first started, I thought he looked quite depressed, and you sensed something unexpected had happened, but I think the war has emboldened him and he looks like this is now the new normal,” she added.
“There is some discontent in the cities, but in provincial Russia, people seem to support the war – and even mobilisation.
“But we can only go by what we see because there is no real opposition in Russia.”
A former Harrods director told Sky News he does not see how security at the department store “wouldn’t have known” about Mohamed al Fayed’s behaviour towards women.
Five women have alleged they were raped by Fayed, who died last year at the age of 94, with several others alleging sexual misconduct.
A legal team representing alleged victims confirmed on Saturday morning they have “had over 150 new inquiries” since the airing of a BBC documentary on Fayed.
The Harrods’ ex-director, who reported directly to Fayed, said: “There was security everywhere, all the phones and offices were bugged, with cameras everywhere.
“I just put it down to paranoia, wanting to know he was getting his pound of flesh from us. The nature of the man was to set everyone against each other, to set directors against each other.
“Whether Fayed’s own offices or stuff had surveillance, I wouldn’t know. But to get into his suite of offices you had to have an appointment, PAs had to arrange it, it was very secure.”
Harrods department store in London. Pic: iStock
He added: “The only thing I was aware of was that someone said he had lots of PAs and they were all blondes. I thought that he just wanted to surround himself with pretty women.”
The former director, who spoke to Sky News on the condition of anonymity, said the culture at Harrods was toxic.
“It was very much keep your head down, no one helped each other. It wasn’t a team as you knew Fayed was trying to catch everyone out.
“He was always trying to make fun of people in front of others, which he thought was very funny.”
Harrods said in a statement on Thursday it was “utterly appalled” by the allegations of abuse and apologised to Fayed’s alleged victims.
The department store has also set up a page on its website inviting former employees to come forward if they have allegations.
Meanwhile, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has defended Sir Keir Starmer after it emerged the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) declined to bring charges against Fayed while the prime minister was director of public prosecutions.
The CPS considered bringing charges against the former Harrods chairman in 2009 and 2015 but concluded there was not “a realistic prospect of a conviction”.
The minister told Sky News that tackling violence against women was a “personal priority” while Sir Keir was head of the CPS as director of public prosecutions between 2008 and 2013.
Bridget Phillipson speaking to Sky News
“I don’t know the details of what happened in 2009, there sometimes can be issues with the evidence that’s presented by the police, whether that can lead to a conviction,” Ms Phillipson said.
“The first time that I ever knew who Keir Starmer was when I saw him on television as director of public prosecutions, talking about the personal priority that he attached to tackling violence against women and girls, so he’s got a personal commitment to it.
“He turned the CPS around while he was leading it to focus on that. But, clearly, if there have been issues that should be considered, that should happen.”
Sir Keir arriving at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool with Angela Rayner. Pic: PA
A Downing Street spokesperson said Sir Keir did not handle Fayed’s case, adding it “did not cross his desk”.
The CPS also provided early investigative advice to the Metropolitan Police in 2018, 2021 and 2023 following allegations made against Fayed.
However, a full file of evidence was never received by the CPS in each of these instances and they were given no further action by police.
Former Victims’ Commissioner Dame Vera Baird accused the CPS of only taking “cases they could win”, saying the organisation was “a den of negativity for all sexual offence allegations and for the people who made them”.
She told Sky News: “They have always been valued for the proportion of cases they win. So you do 20 [cases] and you [win] 15 – 75%, that’s good. But if you only do 10 because 10 are really, really safe, then you get nine of them – that is a super rate of conviction.
“Their interest mitigated for all of that time against the interests of people who severely needed to have the help of the criminal justice system to get over the awful way that they were treated by their assailants. And now it’s very clear that Mr Fayed was one of those.“
Read more:
Egyptian tycoon was never far from controversy
Security officer ‘warned royals about Fayed before Diana holiday
‘One of the worst cases of corporate sexual exploitation’
She also said the CPS’s treatment of women may have affected its decision to not take charges against Fayed.
“Women who come forward with complaints of this kind are underestimated and undervalued, and to some extent seen as a liability who [is] likely to be volatile or emotionally not very well, largely because of the way they’ve been treated,” she said.
But Dame Vera defended Sir Keir for his “ahead of the game” approach to violence against women while he was director of public prosecutions.
“They were doing their best and for instance, the CPS was the first ever government organisation to have a violence against women and girls strategy.
“Keir initiated a report by a very highly-regarded lawyer about how the CPS should systematically get away from the myths about prosecution and about sex offences, that it impeded them from taking cases forward. That was a very strong thing to do.”
UK
Crown Prosecution Service acknowledges it twice failed to prosecute Mohamed al Fayed over sex abuse claims
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has acknowledged it had twice failed to bring charges against Mohamed al Fayed for sexual abuse.
The former Harrods owner, who died last year at the age of 94, was described as a “monster” earlier this week by lawyers representing alleged sexual abuse victims.
Women say he raped and sexually assaulted them while they worked at the luxury department store, and accused him of “cherry-picking” women to be brought to his executive suite.
As the legal team said they have heard more than 150 inquiries into Fayed’s alleged crimes, a CPS spokesperson has now said evidence against the Egyptian businessman was provided to prosecutors by the Metropolitan Police twice.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
‘I was terrified’: Alleged victim speaks out
In 2008, Fayed was accused of indecent assault against a 15-year-old girl, which he denied. The CPS did not prosecute the case when it was presented in 2009 over conflicting evidence.
He was then alleged to have raped a woman in 2013, which was reinvestigated by police in 2015 but did not lead to any charges.
While the CPS did review both files, the spokesperson said: “To bring a prosecution the CPS must be confident there is a realistic prospect of conviction – in each instance, our prosecutors looked carefully at the evidence and concluded this wasn’t the case.”
It marks the first time the service acknowledged the 2015 investigation. The CPS also provided the Met Police with early investigative advice for Fayed in 2018, 2021 and 2023.
Full evidence was never received for these instances and the police took no further action.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
‘Mohamed al Fayed brainwashed me’
It comes after the victims’ legal team confirmed on Saturday they had received “over 150 new inquiries” after a BBC documentary on Fayed aired.
It also follows the former head of royal protection saying he warned the Royal Family about Fayed’s reputation before Princess Diana took Prince Harry and Prince William on holiday with the businessman’s son.
Dai Davies told Sky News people were aware of the Egyptian businessman’s reputation as far back as the 1990s, and said: “This was a man who I would be concerned [about] if a relative of mine was going on holiday with him, let alone the future king and his brother and their mother, Princess Diana.”
Princess Diana, Prince William (right) and Prince Harry (left) in Saint Tropez on 14 July 1997. File pic: AP
He added he was “horrified” before the late princess went on holiday with Fayed and his wife to their residence in St Tropez in July 1997.
“I was aware that he had tried very hard to ingratiate himself with the Royal Family,” he said, “and obviously knowing, as I did, the reputation he was alleged [to have] then, I was concerned, and I took the opportunity to inform the Royal Family.”
Buckingham Palace told Sky News it had no comment on the allegations.
Read more from Sky News:
‘Jail Starmer’ graffiti at MP’s office
Joshua stunned by British rival at Wembley
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Fulham FC, which was owned by Fayed between 1997 and 2013, also said it is “deeply troubled” by the dozens of “disturbing” sexual abuse allegations against the businessman.
Harrods said in a statement on Thursday it was “utterly appalled” by the allegations of abuse and apologised to Fayed’s alleged victims.
The department store has also set up a page on its website inviting former employees to come forward if they have allegations.
Anthony Joshua missed out on the chance to become a three-time heavyweight world champion after he was stopped by British rival Daniel Dubois in the fifth round.
Dubois, 27, knocked down Joshua towards the end of the opening round with an overhand right to the 34-year-old’s chin.
The IBF heavyweight champion then dropped Joshua at the end of round three and twice in the fourth.
A right hook ended the fight with a knockout for Dubois’ first defence of the title.
The fighters went toe to toe at London’s Wembley Stadium in front of a record 96,000 fans.
The 34-year-old was knocked down four times in the opening four rounds, and knocked out in the fifth. Pic: Reuters
Daniel Dubois became IBF champion after Oleksandr Usyk vacated the title. Pic: Reuters
‘We came up short’
Minutes after retaining the IBF championship, Dubois shouted to the crowd “are you not entertained?” before saying: “I’m a gladiator, you know?
“I’m just a warrior to the bitter end. I’m just ready to go. I want to go to the top level of this game and reach my potential. God bless you all.”
Joshua said the loss would not stop him from rebuilding despite admitting “we came up short”.
“You know I’m ready to kick off in the ring, but I’m going to keep my cool, keep very professional, and give respect to my opponent,” he said.
“I’m always saying to myself I’m a fighter for life… We keep rolling the dice. I had a sharp opponent, a fast opponent and a lot of mistakes from my end, but that’s the game.”
Dubois’ victory has sent a message to the whole heavyweight division
Daniel Dubois will feel like he has fulfilled his destiny here at Wembley. His father has trained him to be a champion boxer since he was tiny.
He held the IBF belt, but he has gone in there tonight and defended it in spectacular fashion – he is now in every conversation going forward.
What now for AJ? Can he face rebuilding? And will he even want to?
The Wembley ring walk is notoriously long, and Dubois looked nervous – but so did Joshua, who has done this many times before in front of a full house.
Perhaps he was thinking of what was at stake – the chance to be a three-time heavyweight champion of the world.
But 27-year-old Dubois holds the belt and was keen to prove he was a worthy champion quickly.
Many wondered if Dubois would freeze on the biggest stage: Question asked and answered emphatically.
It was a crushing defeat for Joshua – most were not expecting such a one-sided victory.
Dubois will now most likely take on the winner of Fury v Usyk 2 for all the belts. But the manner of his victory has sent a message to the whole heavyweight division.
Pic: PA
Pic: PA
Hearn: AJ will want rematch
Promoter Eddie Hearn then said “it was the first round” where Joshua lost, “after that he was fighting on heart and desire”.
Hearn added: “When you are in there with a massive puncher this is what can happen. He never stopped trying to get up, even when he couldn’t get up.
“Daniel deserves credit, he’s a real world champion. Congratulations to him… I’m sure [Joshua will] exercise that rematch clause, it’s a given, it’s a dangerous fight because he’s growing in confidence all the time but he’ll believe he can beat him.”
Pic: Bradley Collyer/PA Wire
British champion Dubois, who before tonight had never fought at Wembley, was elevated to the IBF title holder after Oleksandr Usyk relinquished the belt.
Joshua outweighed Dubois by four pounds, despite a career-heaviest weight for his rival, ahead of the fight.
Among those watching was Tyson Fury, the former WBC heavyweight champion, who took a ringside seat.
Read more from Sky News:
Lily Allen had kids for ‘all the wrong reasons’
Parents die on Hawaii ‘babymoon’
Liam plays Oasis hits
Fury is set to fight Usyk for the other three titles in a rematch on 21 December.
Ahead of the fight, Liam Gallagher played some of Oasis’ biggest hits to the sold-out crowd.
Pic: PA
Pic: Reuters
The 52-year-old frontman walked on to a massive cheer and said “yes Wembley vibes in the air,” before launching into Rock ‘N’ Roll Star, Supersonic and Cigarettes & Alcohol.
He and Noel Gallagher will play Wembley for their first of seven reunion shows at the stadium on 25 July – 307 days away.
Other famous faces ringside were Irish MMA fighter Conor McGregor, former boxer Ricky Hatton, Spice Girl Emma Bunton and Love Island presenter Maya Jama.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports6 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports11 months agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Environment1 year agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Environment1 year agoTesla advances Powerwall pilot project with German electric company