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.”
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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.
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“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.”
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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.”
An alleged attack by the Manchester Arena bomb plotter on prison officers at a high-security jail “will stick with” those impacted “for the rest of their lives”, a former officer and colleague of the victims has said.
Hashem Abedi is accused of violently assaulting officers at HMP Frankland in Durham last weekend, using hot cooking oil and an improvised, or homemade, weapon.
He was serving his sentence in a separation unit, known as a “jail within a jail”, after being found guilty of 22 counts of murder for helping his brother Salman Abedi carry out a suicide bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in 2017.
The attack has raised fresh questions about the safety of prison staff.
Inmates inside separation units had access to cooking facilities, which has now been suspended.
Abedi was moved back to Belmarsh after the alleged attack
‘It will stick with them for life’
Matthew, who only wants to be referred to by his first name, worked with the officers who were hospitalised following the attack.
“I’ve spoken to ex-colleagues who I’m still friends with,” he told Sky News.
“They’ve not discussed the specifics of the incident, but they’ve said it will stick with them for the rest of their lives.”
Matthew broke down as he described the “obscene” and “ludicrous” levels of violence that staff face inside prison.
He’s worked at a number of different jails.
“I’ve been there when you’re mopping your colleagues’ blood… when you’ve seen a serious assault, and you don’t know if they’re gonna be OK, and then 10 minutes later, you’ve got to get back on with your day, you’ve got to carry on running the regime,” he said.
“It is difficult, and it is awful.”
Matthew worked with the officers who were hospitalised
‘No adequate protection’
There were 10,496 assaults against prison staff in England and Wales in the 12 months to September – a 19% rise on the previous year.
“The reality is there’s no adequate protections for prison staff, and that’s a great frustration,” the general secretary of the Prison Officers’ Association union, Steve Gillan, told Sky News.
Having visited HMP Frankland earlier in the week, and spoken to many of the officers who were involved, Mr Gillan described the mood among colleagues as one of “anger, frustration, and sadness”.
The association, which represents prison officers, is calling for a “reset” – and for staff to be given stab-proof vests and tasers in “certain circumstances”.
Read more:
Prisons now 98.9% full
Fewer criminals to be jailed
Steve Gillan
‘The entire system needs to change’
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said she shared “the country’s shock and anger” at the attack.
The government has launched a review that will look at how it was able to happen, and will also consider how separation centres are run.
The Prison Service is also conducting a “snap” review into whether protective body armour should be available to frontline staff.
But ex-officer Matthew said “nobody is ever truly safe” in the prison service, with staff facing “impossible challenges every day”.
“The entire system needs to change,” he added. “From the ground up.”
Unwary travellers returning from the EU risk having their sandwiches and local delicacies, such as cheese, confiscated as they enter the UK.
The luggage in which they are carrying their goodies may also be seized and destroyed – and if Border Force catch them trying to smuggle meat or dairy products without a declaration, they could face criminal charges.
The new jeopardy has come about because last weekend, the government quietly “extended” its “ban on personal meat imports to protect farmers from foot and mouth”.
This may or may not be bureaucratic over-reaction.
It’s certainly just another of the barriers EU and UK authorities are busily throwing up between each other and their citizens – at a time when political leaders keep saying the two sides should be drawing together in the face of Donald Trump’s attacks on European trade and security.
Keir Starmer’s been embarking on a reset with European leaders. Pic: Reuters
The ban on bringing back “cattle, sheep, goat, and pig meat, as well as dairy products, from EU countries into Great Britain for personal use” is meant “to protect the health of British livestock, the security of farmers, and the UK’s food security.”
There are bitter memories of previous outbreaks of foot and mouth disease in this country, in 1967 and 2001.
In 2001, there were more than 2,000 confirmed cases of infection resulting in six million sheep and cattle being destroyed. Footpaths were closed across the nation and the general election had to be delayed.
In the EU this year, there have been five cases confirmed in Slovakia and four in Hungary. There was a single outbreak in Germany in January, though Defra, the UK agriculture department, says that’s “no longer significant”.
The UK imposed bans on personal meat and dairy imports from those countries, and Austria, earlier this year.
Authorities carry disinfectant near a farm in Dunakiliti, Hungary. Pic: Reuters
Better safe than sorry?
None of the cases of infection are in the three most popular countries for UK visitors – Spain, France, and Italy – now joining the ban. Places from which travellers are most likely to bring back a bit of cheese, salami, or chorizo.
Could the government be putting on a show to farmers that it’s on their side at the price of the public’s inconvenience, when its own measures on inheritance tax and failure to match lost EU subsidies are really doing the farming community harm?
Many will say it’s better to be safe than sorry, but the question remains whether the ban is proportionate or even well targeted on likely sources of infection.
Read more: The products you can’t bring into Britain from the EU
No more gourmet chorizo brought back from Spain for you. File pic: iStock
A ‘Brexit benefit’? Don’t be fooled
The EU has already introduced emergency measures to contain the disease where it has been found. Several thousand cattle in Hungary and Slovenia have been vaccinated or destroyed.
The UK’s ability to impose the ban is not “a benefit of Brexit”. Member nations including the UK were perfectly able to ban the movement of animals and animal products during the “mad cow disease” outbreak in the 1990s, much to the annoyance of the British government of the day.
Since leaving the EU, England, Scotland and Wales are no longer under EU veterinary regulation.
Northern Ireland still is because of its open border with the Republic. The latest ban does not cover people coming into Northern Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey, or the Isle of Man.
Rather than introducing further red tape of its own, the British government is supposed to be seeking closer “alignment” with the EU on animal and vegetable trade – SPS or “sanitary and phytosanitary” measures, in the jargon.
A ban on cheese? That’s anything but cracking. Pic: iStock
UK can’t shake ties to EU
The reasons for this are obvious and potentially make or break for food producers in this country.
The EU is the recipient of 67% of UK agri-food exports, even though this has declined by more than 5% since Brexit.
The introduction of full, cumbersome, SPS checks has been delayed five times but are due to come in this October. The government estimates the cost to the industry will be £330m, food producers say it will be more like £2bn.
With Brexit, the UK became a “third country” to the EU, just like the US or China or any other nation. The UK’s ties to the European bloc, however, are much greater.
Half of the UK’s imports come from the EU and 41% of its exports go there. The US is the UK’s single largest national trading partner, but still only accounts for around 17% of trade, in or out.
The difference in the statistics for travellers are even starker – 77% of trips abroad from the UK, for business, leisure or personal reasons, are to EU countries. That is 66.7 million visits a year, compared to 4.5 million or 5% to the US.
And that was in 2023, before Donald Trump and JD Vance’s hostile words and actions put foreign visitors off.
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Trump: ‘Europe is free-loading’
More bureaucratic botheration
Meanwhile, the UK and the EU are making travel between them more bothersome for their citizens and businesses.
This October, the EU’s much-delayed EES or Entry Exit System is due to come into force. Every foreigner will be required to provide biometric information – including fingerprints and scans – every time they enter or leave the Schengen area.
From October next year, visitors from countries including the UK will have to be authorised in advance by ETIAS, the European Travel and Authorisation System. Applications will cost seven euros and will be valid for three years.
Since the beginning of this month, European visitors to the UK have been subject to similar reciprocal measures. They must apply for an ETA, an Electronic Travel Authorisation. This lasts for two years or until a passport expires and costs £16.
The days of freedom of movement for people, goods, and services between the UK and its neighbours are long gone.
The British economy has lost out and British citizens and businesses suffer from greater bureaucratic botheration.
Nor has immigration into the UK gone down since leaving the EU. The numbers have actually gone up, with people from Commonwealth countries, including India, Pakistan and Nigeria, more than compensating for EU citizens who used to come and go.
Editor’s note: Hands off my focaccia sandwiches with prosciutto! Pic: iStock
Will European reset pay off?
The government is talking loudly about the possible benefits of a trade “deal” with Trump’s America.
Meanwhile, minister Nick Thomas Symonds and the civil servant Mike Ellam are engaged in low-profile negotiations with Europe – which could be of far greater economic and social significance.
The public will have to wait to see what progress is being made at least until the first-ever EU-UK summit, due to take place on 19 May this year.
Hard-pressed British food producers and travellers – not to mention young people shut out of educational opportunities in Europe – can only hope that Sir Keir Starmer considers their interests as positively as he does sucking up to the Trump administration.
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