The former British Prime Minister offers a top-down view of Sergei Skripal's Novichok poisoning in a memoir covering her time overseeing the UK spy agencies.

Ex-KGB Colonel Sergei Skripal was enjoying lunch with his daughter in Salisbury, England when they felt the paralyzing hand of death. Hours later, the Skripals were found slumped on a park bench slipping in and out of consciousness.

It was Sunday, March 4, 2018, and while it wasn’t immediately clear what happened, this wasn’t just any couple. One of the targets was a former GRU military intelligence officer who’d become a British citizen after a prisoner swap in 2010. His daughter had flown in from Russia to visit.

“In the range of unexpected moments during my time in office, the moment when I was told of the Salisbury poisonings ranks above them all,” May writes in her 2023 memoir The Abuse of Power. “I began to think through what the impact might be, what immediate action was required, what needed to be done to ensure the safety of others, what it meant for international relations, and what the fallout was likely to be.”

Britain’s civil service went into preparation overdrive. If it was a worst-case scenario - a foreign state attempting murder on British soil - they’d need to decide how Britain’s Parliament should be told and when.

The sinister truth‍

A major incident was declared the following day. The hospital was worried about the Skripals’ symptoms and a police officer who’d visited Skripal’s home was now in intensive care. It seemed Novichok, a deadly nerve agent created by the Soviet Union in the later stages of the Cold War, had been smeared on Skripal’s door knob.

May held her tongue for more than a week. “My experience of terrorist events while Home Secretary had shown me the importance of not simply responding to calls for information, however loud,” May said.

She addressed Parliament on March 12: “It is now clear that Mr. Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia,” May said, according to Hansard. “It is highly likely that Russia was responsible for the act against Sergei and Yulia Skripal.”

Russia denied involvement in the poisonings, however, and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Britain of spreading propaganda. Meanwhile, the UK expelled 23 Russian diplomats (May described them as ‘intelligence officers’) and another British victim, Dawn Sturgess, died in July 2018 after coming in contact with Novichok.

Keeping the US on board

When Sergei Skripal finally awoke in the hospital five weeks after being found on a Salisbury bench, relations between London and Moscow were at a new low.

“There is a limit to what I can say publicly about this,” Theresa May writes, a common refrain in her memoir. 

As the Skripal story unfolded, May needed to update Parliament and Britain’s international allies while keeping the US on board. 

“President Trump wasn’t against acting but, as on so many issues, he did not show a proper appreciation of the role America played as the leader of the Western world,” May writes. “His main concern was that the United States was expelling far more than any other country - which was true but reflected the fact that there were more Russian personnel in the US than in other countries. Surely anyone could work out that this simple fact would lead to the number of their expulsions being greater.”
‍

‍

Who was Sergei Skripal? 

It still isn't clear why Skripal was targeted. Was it a warning to others with wavering loyalties?

The former Soviet paratrooper was invited to join the GRU in 1979. Skripal was sent on a tour of Malta in the 1980s and worked on undercover missions in China and Afghanistan, according to The Skripal Files written by Mark Urban, a former British soldier and BBC journalist who interviewed Sergei Skripal for 10 hours before his poisoning. 

When the Soviet Union imploded in 1991, Skripal’s loyalties were tested. A Spanish contact who befriended the Skripal family indicated he had ‘friends’ in the UK. Skripal is said to have sketched out the GRU command structure but didn’t have operational details. He was reportedly paid $3,000 a meeting until the FSB arrested Skripal and threw him into a Siberian prison, Urban said.

Skripal was one of four Russian prisoners released to the West in a 2010 swap for 10 Russian spies working as illegal US sleeper agents. (Despite this, Britain still refused to describe Skripal as a 'spy' at a 2023 inquiry.)

Moscow, meanwhile, continued to deny involvement in the Novichok poisonings. The chief suspects Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov - identified in Theresa May’s book as aliases for GRU officers Alexander Mishkin and Anatoly Chepiga - told RT television they were simply visiting Salisbury to see the cathedral’s 123-meter spire and clock.
‍

‍

Three charged in the Novichok poisonings

In September 2018, England’s Crown Prosecution Service authorized charges against Petrov and Boshirov (aka Mishkin and Chepiga).

“Later that month, charges were authorized against a third man known as Sergei Fedotov, an alias for Denis Sergeev, who evidence showed was also a member of the GRU. Arrest warrants and Interpol notices are in place,” May wrote in her 2023 memoir.

As for the Skripals, they reportedly spent more than a year in an MI6 safe house before beginning their life abroad with different identities. May doesn’t offer any information about their fate but does express her ire despite Vladimir Putin’s denial.

“This was not a well-trained, finely honed set of agents able to enter unseen, carry out their attack successfully, and leave the country without leaving any trace behind them,” May writes. “Either this was nonchalance on a significant scale, or the Russians just aren’t as good as everyone thinks they are.”