Police: Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal, daughter poisoned at their front door

British police investigate the poisoning of a Russian ex-spy.

(Image credit: Chris J. Ratcliffe/Getty Images)

last updated 29 March 2018

Police in Britain say Russian former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, first came in contact with the nerve agent that poisoned them at the front door of their house.

Earlier this month, the Skripals were found unconscious on a bench outside a mall in Salisbury. Sergei Skripal was once a Russian military intelligence officer, later convicted of passing along information on Russian spies to Britain; he was released from jail as part of a spy swap in 2010, and moved to Salisbury. British Prime Minister Theresa May has said the Skripals were poisoned by a nerve agents developed by Russia, from a group known as Novichok agents, and there is "no alternative conclusion other than that the Russian state was culpable."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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