Spy plot: UK names two Russian GRU men

London: Britain charged two Russians in absentia on Wednesday with the attempted murder of a former Russian spy and his daughter, and said the suspects were military intelligence officers almost certainly acting on orders from high up in the Russian state.

The British police revealed images of the two men they said had flown to Britain for a weekend in March to kill former spy Sergei Skripal with Novichok, a military-grade nerve agent.

Skripal’s daughter Yulia and a police officer who attended the scene also fell ill in the case, which has caused the biggest East-West diplomatic expulsions since the Cold War. A woman later died from Novichok poisoning after her partner found a counterfeit perfume bottle which police believe had been used to smuggle the nerve agent into Britain.

British authorities identified the suspects as Russian nationals travelling on genuine passports under the aliases Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov. PM Theresa May told parliament the government had concluded they were officers in Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU.

“The GRU is a highly disciplined organisation with a well-established chain of command, so this was not a rogue operation,” Ms May said.