Tuez Skripal

Matt Frei explores the poisoning of Russian Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, searching for clues to potential motives that could explain why the former British double agent was targeted. The search takes him into the murky world of espionage, politics and crime, examining whether the latest chapter in a number of suspicious deaths of Russians on British soil could all be linked. The Kremlin denies it, but were these simply tragic endings or brazen state-sponsored assassinations?

Panorama special telling the inside story of how Russia sent an assassination squad to Salisbury to murder former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. In the first nerve agent attack in Europe ever, this brazen and reckless attack risked contaminating thousands of people. With exclusive access to the Salisbury investigation, reporter Jane Corbin hears for the first time from front-line police officers, the government's chemical weapons scientist, soldiers drafted in to decontaminate the city, diplomats and intelligence insiders.

On Monday, 4 March 2019, Sergei Skripal and his 33-year-old daughter Yulia collapsed in the centre of Salisbury in Wiltshire. Both were suffering the effects of A-234, a third-generation Russian-manufactured military grade Novichok nerve agent. As three suspects, all GRU officers, were quickly identified, it was also established that the door handle to the Skripals’ suburban home had been contaminated with the toxin.