Salisbury novichok suspects: Kremlin denies any knowledge of GRU colonel identified as suspect

After a long silence, the Kremlin has cast doubt on photographs that appear to show a suspect in the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia was a Russian intelligence officer, saying that “many people look alike”.

It had been expected President Vladimir Putin would use an official trip to Azerbaijan to face down reports linking a military intelligence (GRU) colonel to the Salisbury novichok scandal.

But after fielding a few brief questions from loyal journalists, the president moved on to a discussion of Azeri-Russian relations and, then, a judo competition.

There would be no discussion of the explosive Bellingcat/Insider investigation that introduced Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga to the world.

It was left to loyal officials to hold the fort. Writing on Facebook, Maria Zakharova, the foreign ministry’s spokesperson, dismissed the investigation as “fabrications”. The new report provided “no proof”, she said. And its only aim was to distract attention from what happened in Salisbury.

Loyal media also undermined the story. The Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid quoted a Defence Ministry official claiming the investigation contained discrepancies. But the arguments seemed convoluted: Chepiga could not have graduated from a certain military academy since that “did not train spies”; Chepiga could not have been at Salisbury at the time of the attack, because he should have been in training school; one of the addresses quoted was wrong.

As the day wore on, and the Kremlin stayed silent, the questions grew in number.

In the afternoon, the respected Kommersant broadsheet published its own investigation, backing up the Bellingcat/Insider findings. The paper tracked down residents of the village where Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga apparently spent much of his youth. Locals said they recognised “Tolya” (short form of Anatoliy) in the UK police photos and much-ridiculed RT interview.

“It’s Tolya, one hundred percent. His near-black eyes, and his voice,” said one woman, who refused to be identified.

When the Kremlin eventually broke cover on Thursday evening, it was to deny knowledge of anything to do with the GRU colonel.

In a tense session with journalists, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he did “not have the information” to confirm or deny the man that UK police identified as Ruslan Boshriov was, indeed, Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga.

“We don’t have any other data,” he said. “We see there has been an informal investigation. We don’t know if it is true, or how much it is true.”

Besides, he added, “many people look like one another.”

Mr Peskov claimed to have only come across the information when the report was published on Wednesday. He could not confirm why a military officer by the name of Chepiga received Russia’s highest military award.

The spokesman indicated the Kremlin had little interest in a comprehensive discussion of the subject. After speaking out in defence of “two ordinary civilians”, the president is also unlikely to voluntarily return to the issue.

“Putin understands it was an egregious mistake of information policy to speak in the way that he did,” says former Kremlin advisor Gleb Pavlovsky. The president’s ill-advised intervention had only fuelled the scandal: “Before there was only Theresa May speaking. Putin voluntarily offered up a protocol equivalent.”

Mr Pavlovsky suggests the Russian president had been motivated by an “elevated sense of self-worth”, and a belief his words would be enough to change things.

“He will not be making the same mistake again,” says Mr Pavlovsky.

The scale of the intelligence blunders is likely to have wide-reaching consequences for Russia’s intelligence services. A shake-up in personnel seems inevitable. This is unlikely to happen immediately, however. Mr Putin’s HR policy is usually conservative and detached from news events.

But when it happens, things could get ugly, says Alexei Filatov, a retired lieutenant colonel of Russia's security services.

“If it turns out to be as the investigation says it was, then lord help us, honours will be flying off people’s uniforms, and people will be fired,” he told The Independent. “It would be a shame since the GRU is a decorated institution with a great history.”

Mr Filatov said he could not confirm the veracity of the Bellingcat/Insider report. Nonetheless, their conclusions “looked more convincing and well argued than those presented by our Foreign Ministry”.

The former agent says Russia’s intelligence agencies may also been undone by technological advance: “It is like a mine – we’re discovering new layers of information that previously people thought didn’t exist. It may be impossible to hide all the information.”

But as embarrassing as the leaks have been, they are unlikely to lead to a root-and-branch reform of the political system.

If anything, radical politicians will feed off the scandal, says Mr Pavlovsky.

“I’m afraid our leaders like it when the west writes terrible things about them,” he says. “The system strives to escalation and radicalisation. It answers escalation with escalation.”