'Third Man' in Skripal Attack Was Link to Moscow, Investigative Group Says
A senior Russian military intelligence officer coordinated the nerve-agent attack on Sergei V. Skripal, a former spy, from a hotel in the heart of London, making repeated phone calls to an unregistered, prepaid Russian number, the investigative group Bellingcat says.
The report sheds more light on a third figure in an attack that threw British and Russian relations into a tailspin — each expelled diplomats from the other country — and led to the fatal poisoning of a British woman after the discarded Novichok nerve agent was found in a perfume bottle in the trash.
Bellingcat said it had traced phone calls made by the officer, who was identified as Denis Sergeyev but who traveled under the name Sergei Fedotov. It obtained his metadata from an employee of a Russian mobile operator, who says that the leak did not breach privacy laws because Sergei Fedotov, the individual to whom the number is registered, does not exist.
Moscow has long denied any involvement in the attack on Mr. Skripal, who was living in the English city of Salisbury after being released from a Russian prison in a spy swap. He and his daughter, Yulia Skripal, survived the poisoning attempt, and now remain in an undisclosed location.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia insisted in an interview published on Friday by The Financial Times that Russia had not tried to poison Mr. Skripal, arguing that he had already served a sentence in a Russian prison for assisting British intelligence. He did, however, speak with open contempt for traitors in general.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/third-man-in-skripal-attack-was-link-to-moscow-investigative-group-says/ar-AADEqvY?li=BBnb7Kz
One of Trump's BFFs.