Spiegel: Germany has launched an investigation into those involved in the Skripal case

The Prosecutor General's Office and the German Federal Criminal Office are conducting a preliminary investigation into the poisoning of former intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, Britain. about this Spiegel writes , citing sources.

The investigation is called "Novi". According to the publication, during it, the German authorities discovered that Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov, whom the UK suspects of poisoning, spent three days in 2014 near Frankfurt, Germany.

Spiegel also says that, according to German law enforcement officers, they may be connected with the murder of Georgian citizen Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in Berlin. The killer had a passport similar to the documents of Petrov and Boshirov.

The day before, the French edition of Le Monde, citing sources , said that Western intelligence services had found the “base” of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU, now the Main Directorate of the General Staff) in the French Alps. His employees stayed there in 2014-2018.

Recall that in August the prosecutor's office in Berlin announced the detention of a Russian citizen on suspicion of murdering a Georgian citizen. A few months later, the media said that Vadim Sokolov (real name - Vadim Krasikov), arrested in Berlin in this case, was wanted for the murder of an entrepreneur in Moscow, but later the data disappeared from the bases of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Interpol. After that, the German Foreign Ministry expelled two employees of the Russian embassy from the country. Press Secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov called the country's suspicions of involvement in the incident "absolutely groundless."