LONDON >> Russian President Vladimir Putin must have ordered the Novichok nerve agent attack on Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in 2018, in a “reckless” display of power that led to the death of an innocent woman, a U.K. public inquiry concluded today.

Skripal was found along with his daughter Yulia slumped unconscious on a public bench in the southern English city of Salisbury in March 2018 after Novichok was applied to the front door handle of his nearby home.

About four months later, mother-of-three Dawn Sturgess, 44, died from exposure to the poison after her partner found a counterfeit perfume bottle which Russian spies had used to smuggle the military-grade nerve agent into the country, the inquiry said.

The Skripals, and a police officer who went to Skripal’s house, were left

See Full Page