Is the US concerned about nerve gas attacks in Great Britain?

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In a bizarre twist to the novichok saga, Russian-born Anna Shapiro told a British red-top newspaper that she and her husband were the couple who had been dining at the Prezzo restaurant when they fell ill on Sunday.

Shapiro, 30, an events organiser and model, told the Sun her father was a Russian general and claimed Moscow wanted her dead because she had turned her back on her homeland. She said her 42-year-old husband was still being treated at Salisbury district hospital and was seriously ill but she had discharged herself.
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On Tuesday a Wiltshire police spokesperson said: “Tests have confirmed that the two patients who fell ill in Prezzo restaurant in Salisbury on Sunday evening were not exposed to any kind of nerve agent. Following test results, at this stage this is not being treated as suspicious.

“Inquiries into what caused the pair to become unwell are still ongoing. However, due to the recent events, scientific tests were undertaken to establish if they had come into contact with novichok, or any other type of nerve agent.

“These tests have concluded that this was not the case. Therefore, at this stage, we are not linking their illness to the recent poisonings.”

The laboratory, in a squat, beige building on the outskirts of Moscow, has an unremarkable name: Scientific Research Institute No 2, or NII-2 for short. Most evenings, a few lights are visible through the windows, framed by a couple of scrawny trees.

The lab’s precise function is a state secret. But numerous former Russian intelligence officers – some retired and some defectors – have confirmed that the building is home to the Kremlin’s infamous poisons factory, established in 1921 on the orders of Vladimir Lenin.

Western intelligence experts believe its efforts were originally directed at using poisons en masse on the battlefield. The KGB concluded that the substances worked better on individuals.

Of course, mere abscence[sic] of nerve agents doesn't mean they were not poisoned by the Russians. The Russians have been operating a poison factory for nearly a century.

A hoax is likely to be one line of inquiry after a couple apparently fell ill in a Salisbury restaurant on Sunday prompting a major incident, police sources have told the BBC.

A woman at the centre of a bizarre fresh nerve agent scare in Salisbury has denied that it was an elaborate hoax.

Russian-born model Anna Shapiro claimed on Friday that she really did fear her husband, Alex King, had been poisoned at an Italian restaurant in Salisbury.

She also appeared to stick by the story – which she told the Sun newspaper in vivid detail – that she was targeted by Russians.
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On Friday evening, Shapiro’s lawyer, James Mullion, of Janes Solicitors, said: “There has been some media speculation that our client may have participated in an elaborate hoax as regards her fear of her husband’s poisoning at Prezzo restaurant on Sunday and its possible cause.

“She has asked Janes Solicitors to emphasise that she was not involved in any hoax and that her fears were genuine both as to the poisoning and her suspicion of foul play.

“However, as the incident is now being investigated by Wiltshire police, it is not appropriate to comment further at this stage. We ask the media respect our client’s privacy whilst she recovers from her ordeal.”
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A Wiltshire police spokesperson said: “We can confirm that both people have been interviewed and our inquiries are ongoing. We would ask the media not to speculate whilst these inquiries are ongoing.” No arrests have been made.

Investigative journalists claim to have uncovered the real identity of one of the men Britain has accused of the attempted assassination of double agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury.

According to the report published by Bellingcat and The Insider, the man named by UK police as “Ruslan Boshirov,” is, in fact, Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga, a highly-decorated GRU officer. What is more, he was in 2014 awarded Russia’s highest military award by Vladimir Putin in a secret ceremony. It is believed the honour relates to operations carried out in eastern Ukraine.

Military experts quoted in the report contend that it would be highly unusual for a colonel to be sent on a field mission. This, they suggest, was evidence the job was ordered “at the highest level.”
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A woman in the far east of Russia has told the BBC she recognises one of the key suspects in the Salisbury attack as a military intelligence officer.

The woman identified him immediately from photographs as Anatoliy Chepiga, a decorated "Hero of Russia".

Her assertion supports research by the Bellingcat online investigations team, which also identified Col Chepiga as one of the Salisbury suspects.

The man himself told Russian state TV he was Ruslan Boshirov, a civilian.

The BBC understands that British officials do not dispute the findings by Bellingcat. British police believe the suspects were not using their real names.

Russia denies any involvement in the Novichok nerve agent attack, in which former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned on 4 March.

A BBC team travelled some 5,000 miles east of Moscow to the village of Beryozovka, where Anatoliy Chepiga grew up, close to Russia's border with China.

There, a woman identified a young Anatoliy in the photographs discovered and published by Bellingcat.

She then confirmed that a mugshot released by British police of "Ruslan Boshirov" was also Col Chepiga.

"I know where his parents used to live, that he was a military man. An officer. He fought in war zones, then he was in Moscow," she told the BBC - the first foreign journalists to visit since the Bellingcat report.

Nervous about speaking, she asked to remain anonymous, but said she had seen Col Chepiga as an adult, with his child, and she was sure he and "Boshirov" were one and the same.

She added: "It's him in the photos, of course."

Locals say the family moved out of Beryozovka several years ago.

While Col Chepiga's parents were well known, he was not a regular visitor himself as an adult. Many residents had no idea what he looked like.

Not all had heard of the Salisbury poisoning.

One man who had, and studied with Anatoliy Chepiga at the village school, swore at the BBC team and claimed the allegations were false. He instructed another local not to talk to journalists.

An elderly woman, speaking only through her window, was non-committal about the photographs, insisting that images could be doctored. She did not want to give her name but could not believe the "horrible story" about someone she said she had "valued, respected and liked".

That woman confirmed Anatoliy Chepiga was a "Hero of Russia", a title bestowed by the country's president.

On Friday, Vladimir Putin's spokesman said he had "no information" about any such person being decorated. He declined to say whether that meant the award was for secret missions.

The announcement, though, is still included on the webpage of a local veterans group.

The group's leader told the BBC the information on Col Chepiga was sent to them for inclusion. No one there knew him personally.

At the construction company the BBC Russian service believes was founded and run by Col Chepiga's father in the 1990s, staff would not speak to journalists.

When we called a mobile phone number linked to the parents, a man picked up and claimed to be from Uzbekistan. He said he had bought the phone "on the street" three months ago from "a Russian".

The line was then disconnected.

Two weeks ago, President Putin himself said the suspects wanted by British police were civilians. Nothing special and nothing criminal, he said.

On Friday, his spokesman told journalists that the Kremlin would not discuss any further what he called "informal investigations" into the poisoning.

But the questions over Russia's explanations, and the true identity of the Salisbury suspects, are only mounting.

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