Russia’s Putin found ‘morally responsible’ for nerve agent death in UK

Dawn Sturgess, 44, was unwittingly caught up in an assassination attempt against the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal.Published On 4 Dec 2025A public inquiry has found that Russian President Vladimir Putin bears “moral responsibility” for the death of a British woman in a nerve agent attack in the English city of Salisbury in March 2018, with the UK government responding by sanctioning the Russian intelligence agency (GRU) accused of carrying it out.Speaking on Thursday after the inquiry’s findings were published, its chair, Anthony Hughes, a former senior judge, said Putin had “authorised the mission” to assassinate the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Alexey Navalny’s wife says lab tests show he was poisoned before deathlist 2 of 3Why is Belgium opposed to using Russian assets to support Ukraine?list 3 of 3Putin says Russia ready to take Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region ‘by force’end of listThe conduct of the Russian leader and the alleged GRU agents who planted the poison was “astonishingly reckless,” Hughes added.The Kremlin continues to deny its involvement in the incident.Skripal, a former GRU officer imprisoned in Russia for spying for the United Kingdom, came to the UK after being released in a 2010 spy swap.Eight years later, he and his daughter Yulia were discovered unconscious on a park bench in Salisbury, poisoned by the Russian nerve agent Novichok that had been daubed on the door handle of their homes. They survived after intensive hospital treatment and now live under protection.However, Dawn Sturgess, 44, a mother-of-three, died four months later, shortly after spraying herself with what she thought was perfume from a discarded bottle, but which turned out to contain the deadly chemical.Sturgess was “the entirely innocent victim of the cruel and cynical acts of others”, said Hughes, the inquiry chair.Lawyer Andrew O’Connor told the public inquiry into her death, which started last year, that she was unwittingly caught up in an “illegal and outrageous international assassination attempt”.