DISINFO: There is no proof about what happened to Litvinenko and the Skripals

DISINFORMATION CASE DETAILS

DISINFO: There is no proof about what happened to Litvinenko and the Skripals

SUMMARY

We do not know who poisoned the Skripals, Litvinenko, whether they were poisoned, we do not know whether Russia did it or not. We do not know who did it, and how, and why, but I will tell you an unpopular thing, that if I received evidence that some special services did it against the now employees of another special services, I would not mind.

RESPONSE

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about the Skripal poisoning and the poisoning of a Russian-defector Alexander Litvinenko.

Moscow's involvement in the poisoning of the Skripals has been proven via a thorough investigation. The British Police have presented a solid chain of evidence on the Skripal case, with pictures, connecting the suspects to the locations in the case. Parts of the material have been released to the public. The evidence was sufficient to charge two Russian nationals, Anatoliy Chepiga and Aleksandr Mishkin with the attack on the Skripals, both Russian military intelligence operatives from the GRU, who travelled to the UK using fake names and documents.

Following this attack, the United Kingdom notified the OPCW, invited them to confirm the identity of the substance involved, and briefed members of the Security Council. The OPCW’s independent expert laboratories confirmed the UK’s identification of the Russian produced Novichok nerve agent.

In May 2007, the UK's Crown Prosecution Service charged Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun with "the murder of Mr Litvinenko by deliberate poisoning". In 2016 a public inquiry in the UK established that Mr Litvinenko was killed under the direction of FSB with highly radioactive Polonium-2010. Litvinenko ingested the fatal dose of polonium 210 whilst drinking tea in the Pine Bar of the Millennium Hotel during the afternoon of 1 November 2006.

See more disinformation cases on the Skripals poisoning in Salisbury and the Litvinenko poisoning.

Disclaimer

Cases in the EUvsDisinfo database focus on messages in the international information space that are identified as providing a partial, distorted, or false depiction of reality and spread key pro-Kremlin messages. This does not necessarily imply, however, that a given outlet is linked to the Kremlin or editorially pro-Kremlin, or that it has intentionally sought to disinform. EUvsDisinfo publications do not represent an official EU position, as the information and opinions expressed are based on media reporting and analysis of the East Stratcom Task Force.

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