Chemical security

A Look Back at the Skripal Poisoning, One Year Later

On March 4, 2018, former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a park bench in southern England.

After an investigation, British authorities said the two had been exposed to a military-grade nerve agent in an attempted murder carried out by agents of Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency — a claim that the Kremlin has since repeatedly denied.

The incident caused the rift between Moscow and the West to reach its worst point since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

One year after the poisoning, we look back at what happened in Salisbury and what comes next for Russia-U.K. relations.

Who are Sergei and Yulia Skripal?

Sergei Skripal, 67, is a former GRU officer who in 2004 was convicted of treason in Moscow for his work as a double agent for British intelligence. Sentenced to 13 years in a Russian penal colony, he was freed during a spy swapbetween the United States and Russia. He relocated to Salisbury, England, in 2010.