UK group Bellingcat: Putin honored poisoning suspect in 2014

This undated handout image issued by Bellingcat shows photos of Dr Alexander Yevgenyevich Mishkin, the man the investigative website have alleged was who travelled to Salisbury under the alias Alexander Petrov, over the years. The investigative group Bellingcat is reporting that one of the two suspects in the poisoning of an ex-spy in England is a doctor who works for Russian military intelligence. Bellingcat said on its website Monday, Oct. 8, 2018 that the man British authorities identified as Alexander Petrov is actually Alexander Mishkin, a trained doctor working for the Russian military intelligence unit known as GRU. (Bellingcat via AP)

LONDON — The investigative group Bellingcat said one of the two suspects in the poisoning of a Russian ex-spy in Britain had been made a Hero of the Russian Federation by President Vladimir Putin four years earlier.

The group identified the suspect in the March nerve agent attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter as Alexander Mishkin, a doctor who works for Russian military intelligence.

Bellingcat traced him via passport info, residents’ databases, car registration records, and phone databases.

Bellingcat said Tuesday that two ex-students of the Military Medical Academy confirmed that Mishkin was the man British authorities identified as Alexander Petrov. So did seven residents of his village visited by the Insider, an organization affiliated with Bellingcat.

Villagers said Mishkin’s grandmother has a photo of him being honored by Putin. /kga