Public hearings began Monday at a British inquiry into the 2018 death of a woman who was exposed to the nerve agent Novichok used in an attempt to kill a Russian double agent, which plunged relations between London and the Kremlin to new lows.
The intended target of the poison attack was former double agent Sergei Skripal, who lived in Salisbury, southwest England, and on whom Russian President Vladimir Putin had sworn vengeance.
Skripal and his daughter Yulia were both found unconscious on a bench in the city centre in March 2018. They survived after intensive treatment in hospital, and now live under protection.
Mother-of-three Dawn Sturgess, 44, died in July 2018 after spraying herself with what she thought was perfume from a bottle discarded in a park that contained the deadly chemical weapon.
UK authorities believe that the agents targeting the Skripals had thrown it out.
Britain blames the Novichok attack on two Russian security service officers who allegedly entered the country using false passports. A third has been named as the operation’s mastermind.
All three men are thought to be members of the Russian intelligence agency GRU.
The inquiry into the death of Sturgess in Salisbury comes with diplomatic relations between the West and Russia in the deep freeze, after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in 2022.
