‘Special Units’ in Russia Were Trained in Ways of Skripal Attack, U.K. Says Photo The house in Salisbury, England, where Sergei V. Skripal lives. Agents say that the nerve agent with which he was poisoned was most likely applied to the home’s door handle. Credit Neil Hall/EPA, via Shutterstock Russia has been researching the application of chemical agents to door handles as a way to assassinate its enemies, and has been training personnel “from special units” to carry out such attacks, said Mark Sedwill, Britain’s national security adviser, on Friday in a letter to the secretary general of NATO.
Mr. Sedwill’s letter, the most detailed account of British intelligence on the subject to be shared with the public to date, also revealed that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was “closely involved in the chemical weapons program” beginning in the mid-2000s.
During that period, the letter claims, Russia was secretly developing the nerve agents known as Novichok that British officials say ..