Unknown Skripal

The poisoned spy refused to believe that the Russian special services wanted to kill him and was a "shameless Russian nationalist"

When Skripal woke up after five weeks of a coma caused by the effects of severe poisoning with the Novichok military agent, he faced "serious psychological problems." Not least due to the fact that at first he refused to recognize himself as a victim of the Kremlin's "conspiracy".

While the information war was unfolding between London and Moscow, Skripal was on the mend and sometimes sat in the garden near the main building of the Salisbury hospital. Against all odds, the doctors managed to save his life and the life of his daughter with the help of "innovative therapy".

Urban's book The Skripal Files came out this week. In it, Urban recalls several encounters with Skripal in the summer of 2017, when a Russian spy lived quietly in a house bought by MI6 in Salisbury.

According to Urban, Skripal then did not allow himself to be quoted directly, explaining this as follows: “You see, we are afraid of Putin.” He did not believe that he was personally in danger, but wanted to avoid public statements so that his daughter Yulia Skripal and son Sasha could freely visit him from Moscow.

Urban found that Skripal spent most of the day watching Russian TV Channel One, a pro-Kremlin state TV channel.

He supported the “Kremlin line on many issues,” the journalist writes, “even while sitting in a house bought by MI6,” especially over Moscow’s tense relations with Ukraine.

Skripal, a former paratrooper, supported Putin's 2014 annexation of Crimea and dismissed Ukrainians as "they're just sheep that need a good shepherd." Skripal also refused to believe that Russian troops had secretly entered eastern Ukraine, saying that if they did, they would quickly reach Kyiv.

The book does not answer the main question: why the GRU, the organization in which Skripal used to serve, tried to kill him shortly before the presidential elections in Russia. Two of his alleged killers - Colonel Chepiga and a man under the pseudonym "Alexander Petrov" - are career intelligence officers, the British government now believes.

Urban confirms reports that Skripal passed information to Western intelligence agencies after exchanging him in 2010 for other captured agents and moving to the UK. In 2011, he traveled to the United States, in 2012 - to the Czech Republic and Estonia. Last summer, he spent a week in Switzerland, where he passed information to Swiss intelligence, Urban writes.

But all those visits still don't explain why Moscow would try to kill him with Novichok, a Soviet nerve agent.

Skripal believed that his relatives died of natural causes: his wife Lyudmila died of cancer in 2012, and his son Sasha died of liver failure last year.

Here are some new details about Skripal's career as a British agent. In the summer of 1996, an unnamed MI6 officer recruited Skripal. At this time Skripal worked in the Russian representation in Madrid. Prior to that, he served in Malta and was a member of a group of Spanish residents of the GRU.

In exchange for $3,000 (£2,300), Skripal handed over data on the GRU and the organization's command structure. Cooperation continued after his recall to Moscow. There were no personal meetings with British spies, but Skripal wrote confidential information in invisible ink in a book.

His wife Lyudmila traveled to Spain and handed the book over to Skripal's handler from MI6. The employee gave Skripal a gift - a model of an English cottage, which later ended up on the shelf of Skripal's house in Salisbury. Skripal was uncovered by a double domestic agent of Spanish intelligence, writes Urban, and arrested in 2004.

Skripal's whereabouts are unknown. Yulia Skripal has mentioned that she intends to return to Russia someday, but apparently she has not done so yet.