Sergei Skripal

Sergei Viktorovich Skripal (Сергей Викторович Скрипаль; born 23 June 1951) is a former Russian military intelligence officer who acted as a double agent for the United Kingdom's intelligence services during the 1990s and early 2000s.

Sergei Skripal was born in Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russian SFSR, on 23 June 1951.

His father worked for a land improvement contractor, while his mother was employed with the local Council of Deputies.

He grew up in the town of Ozyorsk, also in Kaliningrad Oblast.

In 1972, Skripal completed the military engineering school in Kaliningrad named Zhdanov, located in the village of Borisovo (formerly Kraußen (Königsberg)) with the qualification of a sapper-paratrooper.

He then studied at the Moscow Military Engineering Academy and subsequently served in the Soviet Airborne Troops where he was deployed to Afghanistan during the Soviet–Afghan War under the command of Boris Gromov.

Skripal was co-opted to the military intelligence (GRU) from the Airborne Troops.

In the early 1990s, he was posted as a GRU officer at the embassy in Malta.

Prosecutors said he had been supplying MI6 with information since the 1990s and was paid $100,000 by MI6 for the information.

Amid controversial circumstances, he was convicted under "Article 275" of the Russian Criminal Code (high treason in the form of espionage) by the Moscow Regional Military Court in a trial conducted behind closed doors.

The prosecution, which was represented by Chief Military Prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky, argued for a 15-year sentence – instead of the 20-year maximum under Article 275 – in recognition of mitigating circumstances such as his cooperation with investigators.

Skripal was sentenced to 13 years in a high-security detention facility; he was also stripped of his military rank and decorations.

In 1994, he obtained a position in the military attaché′s office in Madrid, Spain.

In 1995, according to the FSB and other sources, while in Spain, he was recruited to British intelligence by British intelligence agent Pablo Miller posing as Antonio Alvarez de Hidalgo.

According to Russian prosecutors, he began working for the United Kingdom's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) in 1995 and passed on state secrets, such as the identities of Russian intelligence agents.

After his retirement, he worked in the Household Department of the Russian foreign ministry, while continuing to work for MI6.

He was alleged to have blown the cover of 300 Russian agents.

In 1996, due to his diabetes, Skripal was sent back to Moscow, where he went on to work in the GRU headquarters and for a while was acting director of the GRU personnel department.

Skripal held the rank of colonel when he retired, due to his inadequate health condition, in 1999.

He continued to make trips to Spain, where he had a house near Málaga at his disposal, provided by his handlers.

From 2001, Skripal worked in the Ministry of Municipalities of the Government of Moscow Oblast.

In December 2004, he was arrested by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) and later tried, convicted of high treason, and sentenced to 13 years in prison.

In December 2004, Skripal was arrested outside his house in Moscow's Krylatskoye District shortly after returning from Britain.

In August 2006, he was convicted of spying for Britain.

The affair was not revealed to the public until after he was sentenced in August 2006.

Skripal's lawyers appealed the sentence, which was upheld by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court on 30 November 2006.

He settled in the United Kingdom in 2010 following the Illegals Programme spy swap.

He holds both Russian and British citizenship.

In July 2010, Skripal was pardoned by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

On 9 July 2010, Skripal and three other Russians, who had been imprisoned for spying for the US, were freed as part of a spy swap.

The four men were exchanged for ten Russian agents arrested in the United States as part of the Illegals Program.

The UK government insisted on Skripal being included in the swap.

Skripal moved to Salisbury, Wiltshire, where he purchased a house in 2011.

On 4 March 2018, he and his daughter Yulia, a Russian citizen who was visiting him from Moscow, were poisoned with a Russian-developed Novichok nerve agent, and were admitted to Salisbury District Hospital in a critical condition.

The poisoning was investigated by the British intelligence service as an attempted murder.

On 29 March 2018, Yulia was reported to be out of critical condition, and was "conscious and talking".

A week later, on 6 April, it was announced that Sergei Skripal was no longer in critical condition.

He was discharged from hospital on 18 May 2018.

According to intelligence sources cited by The Times in March 2018, Skripal was first spotted for potential development as an asset by Spanish intelligence but was approached by the British recruiter around July 1995 and was given the codename 'Forthwith'.

According to the FSB, Pablo Miller was also involved in efforts to recruit other Russian assets and was in contact with Alexander Litvinenko.