Russia sought to dismiss a report identifying one of the suspects in the attempted murder of a former Russian spy and his daughter in the British town of Salisbury as a highly decorated special service operative.
On Wednesday, two investigative online news organizations reported that one of the men who allegedly smeared poison onto the door handle of defected Russian spy Sergei Skripal was Col. Anatoliy Chepiga, a high-ranking member of the Russian military intelligence service, also known as the GRU.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova Thursday dismissed the report in a Facebook post, saying “there is no proof” and that the release was aimed to coincide with an address at the United Nations Security Council by British Prime Minister Theresa May. A spokeswoman for the U.K. Home Office declined to comment on the report, citing an ongoing probe into the matter.
According to the investigative websites, Bellingcat and the Insider, Mr. Chepiga traveled to the U.K. under the alias of Ruslan Boshirov. Earlier this month, British prosecutors charged two Russian men—named as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov—with four offenses related to the poisoning of the 67-year-old Mr. Skripal, who has lived in Britain since a 2010 spy exchange with Moscow.
Russian President Vladimir Putin previously dismissed the allegations of Russian involvement, saying the two men accused by the U.K. of the poisonings were civilians. A man identified as Mr. Boshirov went on a Russian television station to say that he was visiting Salisbury as a tourist. Bellingcat and the Insider released a passport photo they said was of Mr. Chepiga, which bore a strong resemblance to the man identified as Mr. Borishov. The websites said Mr. Chepiga served in Chechnya and Ukraine and was honored as a “Hero of the Russian Federation” in 2014.
Mrs. May on Wednesday again berated Russia’s use of chemical weapons on British soil during a speech at the United Nations Security Council. She attacked Russia’s moves to “flagrantly breach international norms—from the seizing of sovereign territory to the reckless use of chemical weapons on the streets of Britain by agents of the Russian GRU.”
The U.K. has previously said it wouldn’t seek extradition of the two men accused of the attack because the Russian constitution forbids it, but that a European Arrest Warrant had been obtained, which would result in their arrest if they set foot in the European Union.
Mr. Skripal, a former colonel in Russian military intelligence who was a double agent for the U.K., and his daughter were left critically ill after the attack in Salisbury. They are now under the protection of British authorities at an undisclosed location. U.K. officials believe that another woman who died in July had come into contact with the same nerve agent used in the attack.
Write to Max Colchester at max.colchester@wsj.com
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