RUSSIAN POISONINGS: SERGEI SKRIPAL (PART 1)

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When the President of Russia calls you a traitor and a scumbag, you know you are in trouble! This trouble rang true for Sergei Skripal, and his daughter in 2018 when they were poisoned with Novichok. It is a deadly nerve agent, so lethal that a miniscule amount is enough to kill a human! So what did Sergei Skripal do that was so awful that the President of Russia ordered his assassination?

"He is just a scumbag. He is just a spy, a traitor to the homeland." Vladimir Putin 

EARLY LIFE

Sergei Victorovich Skripal was born on 23 June, 1951 in Kaliningrad Oblast. He grew up in Ozyorsk and his parents were working people. His dad was a land improvement contractor and his mother worked with the local council. 

Sergei Skripal in his military uniform

He worked his whole life in the military and intelligence, with his career starting in 1972 when he studied military engineering at Zhdanov school in Kaliningrad. He qualified as a sapper-paratrooper. He then moved to Moscow to study at the Military Engineering Academy, and then he was deployed to Afghanistan in the Soviet Airborne Troops, fighting in the Soviet-Afghan War. 

After the Soviet Airborne Troops, he started working with the GRU, and started an international career. In the 1990s, he moved to Malta as a GRU officer, and then in 1994 to Madrid, Spain to the military attaché's office. Here, he started to dabble in double agent and sordid activities. 

Mr Skripal with his daughter, Yulia as a child (left) and Mr Skripal on his wedding day with his wife, Ljudmila in 1972 (right)

Mr Skripal also started his family during this time. He got married to his wife, Ljudmila, in 1972 and they had two children together: Alexander and Yulia Skripal. The kids were a decade apart, with Alexander being the eldest, born in 1974. Yulia was born in 1984.

DOUBLE AGENT 

It was during his time in Madrid, working undercover at the military attaché's office that Skripal got recruited to work with the British intelligence, He was purportedly hooked up with this contact by someone working in Spanish intelligence. 

His handler in MI6 is said to have paid Skripal about US$100,000 for his services, which is not that much considering their relationship started in 1996, and continued well into 2018 when Skripal was poisoned. Skripal is said to be responsible for blowing the covers of about 300 GRU officers. 

In 1996, Skripal was sent back to Moscow to work in the GRU Headquarters as his health was declining, his diabetes was flaring up. He worked as the acting director of the GRU personnel department. 

GRU Headquarters, the Russian Military Intelligence agency 

Colleagues described him as fun, and that ''by his psychology, he was materialistic. He loved money!'' When he was sent back to Russia, after his assignment, Skripal lived in a dilapidated home and drove an old Niva car. One could not say that he was oozing money from the outside, but when he went to the restaurant with company, Skripal insisted to pay for everyone. He was liked and well-respected by his peers.  In 1999, he retired from the intelligence agency as his health further declined and did not meet the standards. He held the rank of colonel upon his retirement. Even after he left his career, he continued to travel between Russia and Spain, where he had a holiday home close to Malaga. All expenses paid by MI6, of course!

In 2004, he was arrested outside his home, on allegations of being a double agent. Skripal just returned from Britain. It took prosecutors 2 years to process his crimes and reach a conviction. In 2006, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison. Initially, prosecutors argued he should be give 15 years, from a maximum of 20 years, but the judge to in consideration the guilty plea and Skripal's cooperation, and was lenient with the charge.

Sergei Skripal arrested 

Initially, Skripal was taken away, hooded and handcuffed, to the notorious Lefortovo Prison, located in Moscow. Maybe readers remember this was also the same prison that Alexander Litvinenko was taken when he was accused of treason, before he went seeking for asylum in Britain. Skripal was there for two years, and in that time, he was taken for daily interrogations into his activities, who he was, etc. It was always the same questions. Skripal insists that he was never beaten during these sessions, unlike other prisoners who have to endure gruelling punishment along with the exhausting interrogations. 

Skripal refused to confess to the accusations, even if he was offered reduced sentences or any other benefits. He had an explanation for everything that was thrown at him. They accused him of having large sums of money in his bank account, Skripal explained it away by saying after he left the GRU, he became a businessman. They asked him about his overseas trips, and he confronted them with providing evidence, of which the Russian government had none. 

After his conviction, he was sent to a prison camp to spend his next 13 years in prison. The camp he was sent to was called IK5, which is located in Mordovia, about 566 kilometres from Moscow. 

As soon as he arrived in IK5, Skripal knew he had to find like-minded people that would help him and protect him. Soon, enough he found some paratroopers, just like him. Due to age, rank, experience, maybe a bit of personality, he became the leader of the pack of his friends. In the prison, he stayed busy sewing army and prison uniforms. He was determined to earn his keep enough that he could afford a better life in that place. 

FAMILY LIFE BECOMES HORRIFIC

Life at the labour camp wasn't a bed of roses. It was really really cold and despairing conditions. The food was really poor, and the work toiling on the body and mind. Skripal's loving wife, Ljudmila, packed him a parcel of foodstuff monthly that could be cooked in a decent meal. She sold family valuables so that he could have money to bribe the guards and get extra benefits in jail. Skripal even managed to get new showers and toilets on his cell block. 

A prison camp in Russia like the one Skripal would have been held in to carry out his sentence 

However, the family's life had become unbearable, too. The FBS had cleaned out all their Russian bank accounts, so the matriarch of the family had to beg for money from family and friends to make ends meet. That is from the friends that decided to still keep touch, as most of them turned their backs as soon as Skripal was convicted. The family was shamed.

Ljudmila even stopped doing housework and taking care of her self. The apartment was in shambles, and soon her health also started to collapse. She was diagnosed with endometrial cancer. It spread from her uterus to the rest of her body, and still she refused to see a doctor ''until Sergei Victorovich comes home.''

Sergei and Ljudmila Skripal at a restaurant 

While his wife was sick from cancer, their son Sasha was dying from a different kind of illness. Most of his life was built around his father's intelligence career. He was married to another GRU colonel's daughter, Natalya. Her family lived in the same apartment complex. Sasha also had a job that was acquired through the GRU networks. When his father was convicted, all of that was taken away from Sasha. 

He quit his job abruptly, and he started to drink heavily. Because of his alcoholism, his father-in-law recommended a divorce to his daughter from Sasha. Unfortunately, at the young age of 43 years old Sasha Skripal died of kidney disease, in 2017.

Alexander Skripal's final resting place

His daughter, Yulia, had to put up with being teased at school by her classmates. She even tried to change her name, but it didn't work. She just chose to ignore it and not speak about her father's conviction. 

Happier times for the Skripals at Yulia's gradutation in 2001

APPEALS REJECTED 

Sergei Skripal tried to get his sentence shortened by submitting several appeals to the Russian military court. He confessed that his passed information to a British intelligence officer, but he thought that this person was a business man that was offering him a space in his firm when he retired. The courts did not believe him, and rejected his appeals. 

Unknown to Skripal, in 2010, the Americans were executing Operation Ghost Stories. This is the operation where 10 GRU ''sleeper agents'' were found and arrested, including the famous Anna Chapman. Instead of persecuting these foreign agents on US soil, American government proposed a swap. The Russians had some people that US was interested in, so they were looking to make a deal. 

Normally, such an offer would be rejected outright by the Russians. However, in 2010, the relationship between the two superpowers was fairly cordial, so the deal was made. The question was who were the CIA interested in getting? 

... BUT A NEW OPPORTUNITY?

Back at Prison Camp Number 5, Skripal was ordered to collect his belongings and come with the guard. Without further explanations, he was bundled  into a car bound for Lefortovo Prison in Moscow. Confused, and slightly dazed, Sergei was able to see his family and then quickly he was taken to a small plane, accompanied by three other prisoners, and shipped off to Vienna. The three hour flight was spent in silence. 

From Vienna, the four people were taken on a US government chartered airplane, and the mood was much more jovial. Skripal was free! And, he was bound for the USA. But, that did not mean he was free.... Maybe he would have to look behind his shoulder for the rest of his life? 

In Part 2 we will explore what happened after the spy swap and how the Skripals ended up in Salisbury, UK and why did the elder Skripal and his daughter ended up on a park bench, frothing at the mouth and on the edge of death. Was the Russian government not done with them, or did Sergei Skripal do something to provoke the great wolf of the East, Vladimir Putin?

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