The UK government has announced sanctions and exposure of 11 actors involved in Russian state-sponsored hostile activity, including those working for the Russian military intelligence agency (GRU).
According to the announcement, the GRU was responsible for cyber operations targeting Yulia Skripal with X-Agent malware and, five years later, an attempted murder of both Yulia and her father, Sergei Skripal, on British soil.
Skripal was a former Russian military officer who acted as a double agent for the United Kingdom’s intelligence services during the 1990s and early 2000s. On March 4, 2018, he and his daughter were poisoned with a Russian-made Novichok nerve agent.
These entities and persons have been sanctioned:
- the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (the GRU), Главное управление Генерального штаба Вооружённых сил Российской Федерации (ГРУ);
- Denis Aleksandrovich SMOLYANINOV, Денис Александрович СМОЛЯНИНОВ;
- Vladimir LIPCHENKO, Владимир ЛИПЧЕНКО;
- Yuriy Alekseyevich SIZOV, Юрий Алексеевич СИЗОВ;
- Boris Alekseyevich ANTONOV, Борис Алексеевич АНТОНОВ;
- Anatoliy Vladimirovich ISTOMIN, Анатолий Владимирович ИСТОМИН;
- Igor Andreyevich BOCHKA, Игорь Андреевич БОЧКА;
- Aleksey Andreyevich UMETS, Алексей Андреевич УМЕЦ;
- Denis Igorevich DENISENKO, Денис Игоревич ДЕНИСЕНКО;
- Dmitriy Yuryevich GOLOSHUBOV, Дмитрий Юрьевич ГОЛОШУБОВ;
- Pavel Vyacheslavovich YERSHOV, Павел Вячеславович ЕРШОВ;
- Nikolai Yuryevich KOZACHEK, Николай Юрьевич КОЗАЧЕК
