Salisbury attack - as it happened: Second novichok suspect Dr Alexander Mishkin was 'awarded hero of the Russian Federation'
Bellingcat investigators say Mishkin was photographed 'shaking Vladimir Putin's hand'
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The second Russian man accused of launching the Salisbury novichok attack was also a decorated "hero of the Russian Federation", investigators have said.
Experts from the website Bellingcat said a photograph showed the man shaking hands with Vladimir Putin as he received the country's highest award.
They have named the alleged assassin who arrived in the UK under the alias Alexander Petrov as Dr Alexander Yevgenyevich Mishkin, who was employed by Russia's GRU intelligence agency.
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The 39-year-old graduated from one of Russia's elite Military Medical Academies, the group's website said.
During his studies he was recruited by the GRU and by 2010 had relocated to Moscow, where he received his undercover identity - including a second national ID and travel passport - under the alias Alexander Petrov, it added.
Bellingcat has already identified the assassin who arrived in Britain under the name Ruslan Boshirov as Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga - a highly decorated officer who also worked for the GRU.
A spokesperson for the Home Office said: “We are not commenting as this is still a police investigation.”
The men are believed to have smeared novichok on Sergei Skripal's front door on 4 March and returned to Moscow hours later.
The attack left Mr Skripal and his daughter Yulia critically ill, while Dawn Sturgess, 44, was later accidentally exposed to the same nerve agent and died in July.
Theresa May said their actions were not a “rogue operation” and would have been approved at a senior level in Moscow.
Police release images of suspects in connection with Salisbury attack
Show all 19The activities of the GRU have come under further scrutiny after the agency was accused of trying to hack the global chemical weapons watchdog as it worked to identify the substance used.
Officials in the Netherlands, where the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is based, said four Russians had been expelled after the alleged cyber strike.
British intelligence helped thwart the operation which was launched in April, a month after the poisoning.
The GRU has also been blamed for a string of cyber attacks targeting political institutions, businesses, media and sport.
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said a number of hackers known to have launched attacks have been linked to the GRU.
The NCSC associated four new attacks with the GRU, on top of previous strikes believed to have been conducted by Russian intelligence.
Among targets of the GRU attacks were the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada), transport systems in Ukraine, and democratic elections, such as the 2016 US presidential race, according to the NCSC.
The centre said it was “almost certainly” the GRU behind a “BadRabbit” attack in October 2017 that caused disruption to the Kiev metro, Odessa airport and Russia's central bank.
Mr Grozev says "there is concern at the official level that the GRU may have succeeded in doing something in Malaysia".
Mr Seely says the GRU has had a "remarkable reinvention" over the past 10 years and have become "victims of their own success" and been "getting sloppy".
The OPCW hacking suspects had online dating profiles, including one bearing a photo taken metres from the GRU headquarters. No such luck for the Skripal suspects though
Mr Grozev says the Skripal suspects' fake passport files were 'completely different' from a normal file because there is no history before the date the documents were created in 2009 and 2010.
The records were marked "do not provide information" for government passports and a number for further information which goes through to the GRU headquarters.
Mr Grozev says Bellingcat is also investigating whether the GRU is involved in Libya, where Russia has been supporting some actors in the country's ongoing civil war.
Mr Grozev says it was Mishkin's grandmother with the photograph of him meeting Putin. She "vanished from the village" three days ago to visit her children and Bellingcat's partners at The Insider spoke to friends she had shown it to
That is the press conference wrapped up. Stay tuned for more coverage of the investigation as it continues, as does the British police probe into the Salisbury poisoning
President Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said the Kremlin was not prepared to discuss investigative reports and media articles on the poisoning of Mr Skripal, and complained the British authorities had refused a Russian request to share details of their inquiries.
A statement on the Russian embassy website said: “If information continues to flow in the form of media leaks with references to anonymous sources and investigations by NGOs (even though they have obvious ties with secret services), this will only confirm that the British authorities have no intention to pursue investigation within the framework of international law.”
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