UK names third Russian in Skripal poisoning case

Police in the United Kingdom have charged a third man in absentia as a conspirator in the 2018 murder attempt on Sergei Skripal, the former Russian double agent who was found poisoned in England with a military-grade nerve agent.

They've charged Denis Sergeev, said to be a member of Russia's military intelligence who was operating under the alias Sergey Fedotov at the time.

They say he and the two other spies, using the aliases Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, but now known to be Alexander Mishkin and Anatoliy Chepiga, were a three-man team that ran missions for Moscow in multiple countries.

Mishkin and Chepiga are said to have carried out the attack, which nearly killed Skripal and his daughter Yulia, while Sergeev met the men several times around the incident. All three are believed to be in Russia.

The Skripal poisoning also critically injured a local policeman and resulted in the death of a woman whose boyfriend found a perfume bottle which police believe had been used to smuggle the nerve agent known as Novichok.

British police consulted with authorities in Bulgaria and the Czech Republic during the investigation. In the past, Mishkin and Chepiga had appeared on Russian television claiming they were tourists in England.

Russia has repeatedly denied any involvement in the incident.

Tuesday's announcement came the same day that the European Court of Human Rights ruled Russia was responsible for the 2006 poisoning death of former KGB officer, Alexander Litvinenko, in London.