Vladimir Putin’s assassins went through London’s second busiest railway station on their way to try to kill a former Russian double agent, according to the report into the Salisbury poisonings.
Alexander Petrov, Ruslan Boshirov and Sergey Fedotov, all aliases, were all members of the Russian military intelligence GRU Unit 29155, the 178-page dossier concluded.
Their true names were Aleksandr Mishkin (Petrov), Anatoliy Chepiga (Boshirov) and Denis Sergeev (Fedotov), it added.
They arrived in London from Moscow on Friday 2 March 2018 with the intention of working as a team to kill Sergei Skripal who lived in the historic Wiltshire city.
They failed in their mission and a woman, Dawn Sturgess, was killed after her boyfriend picked up a discarded perfume bottle and gave it to her not knowing it contained the military grade Novichok nerve agent.
Petrov and Boshirov, who had flown into Gatwick Airport, went to stay at the Citystay Hotel in Bow, east London.
Traces of deadly Novichok were later found at this hotel.
“Only Petrov and Boshirov can be the source of the traces in the hotel,” the inquiry report stated.
“Moreover, the traces at the hotel provide compelling evidence linking these men to the Novichok before it was placed in Salisbury.”
Fedotov stayed at the Dolphin Hotel, Norfolk Square, in Paddington, central London.
Having arrived at Heathrow airport, he travelled by Tube to Earl’s Court, and then to Paddington.
All three had previously visited London in 2016.
On Saturday March 3, Petrov and Boshirov caught a train from London Waterloo station, the second busiest rail station in London with 70 million entries and exits a year, to Salisbury.
The phone used by Petrov cell sited in the Waterloo area for ten minutes from about 11.40am.
The two Russian agents were later filmed at the arrivals barrier in Salisbury station at 2.26pm
There had been a train which left Waterloo at 12.50pm and arrived in Salisbury at 2.20pm.
Inquiry chairman Lord Hughes concluded: “I am sure that Petrov and Boshirov brought with them to Salisbury the ‘Nina Ricci’ bottle containing Novichok made in Russia that was subsequently responsible for Dawn Sturgess’ death.
“It was probably this bottle that they used to apply poison to the door handle of Sergei Skripal’s house.
“They recklessly discarded this bottle somewhere public or semi-public before leaving Salisbury.”
Petrov and Boshirov arrived back at London Waterloo station at about 6.25pm, before going to Bond Street for a suspected meeting with Fedotov, before heading back to their east London hotel.
The three Russian agents flew back to Moscow from Heathrow on Sunday March 4.
Sir Keir Starmer said the inquiry into the 2018 Novichok poisoning of Ms Sturgess shows the UK must “remain vigilant” to “reckless” Russian hostile activity on UK soil.
The 44-year-old’s death followed the attempted murder of Mr Skripal, his daughter Yulia and then-police officer Nick Bailey, who were poisoned in Salisbury in March of the same year.
The inquiry’s final report said Putin was “astonishingly reckless” and bears “moral responsibility” for Ms Sturgess’s death.
Lord Hughes concluded the attempted assassination of Mr Skripal “must have been authorised at the highest level, by President Putin”.
The chairman of the inquiry, which cost £8.3 million, said Petrov, Boshirov and Fedotov were “acting on instructions” when they carried out the attack.
The UK sanctioned Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency in its entirety following the report’s release, with measures also hitting 11 people linked to state-sponsored hostile activity and Moscow’s ambassador in London being summoned to the Foreign Office.
The Russian agents deny wrongdoing, claiming they were tourists who wanted to see Salisbury Cathedral with its famous spire, and Moscow has refused to extradite them to face justice.
