A handout picture released by the Metropolitan Police on July 10, 2018 shows Dawn Sturgess who died after being exposed to a nerve agent in Amesbury.
| Photo Credit: AFP
The U.K. government on Thursday (December 4, 2025) sanctioned Russia’s military intelligence unit, the GRU, in its entirety and summoned the Russian ambassador as an inquiry into the 2018 Salisbury poisoning published its final report. ‘The Dawn Sturgess Inquiry’, named after a woman who died in Salisbury after exposure to Novichok, a military-grade nerve agent, concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin had authorised the attack against targeting Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, both of whom were seriously injured, but survived.
Thursday’s announcement also named and sanctioned eleven persons associated with GRU. Ms. Sturgess, a 44-year-old mother of three, was not an intended target of the attack. The report, authored by former judge Anthony Hughes, concluded that Russian agents had discarded the Novichok-containing perfume bottle after applying it to the handle of the front door at Mr. Skripal’s house. Mr. Skripal and his daughter were found unconscious on a park bench on March 4, 2018. The bottle of Novichok, the report concludes, was picked up at some point by a Charley Rowley, who was in the habit of “scavenging public areas” to collect things of potential value to sell. He gifted the bottle to his partner, Ms. Sturgess, who sprayed her wrist with the contents on June 30, 2018. She died a few days later in hospital.
The Skripals, along with Sergei’s (late) wife, had entered the U.K. in 2010 as part of a prisoner exchange arrangement between London and Moscow. The probe found that Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, later confirmed by the U.K. authorities to be Russian agents, carried out the mission. Both men have denied the charges, as has Russia.
“I have concluded that the operation to assassinate Sergei Skripal must have been authorised at the highest level, by [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin,” said Mr. Hughes, in his report.
“Dawn’s needless death was a tragedy and will forever be a reminder of Russia’s reckless aggression,” U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said.
U.K. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the GRU was an active threat to Britain.
Published – December 04, 2025 10:24 pm IST
