A former Russian intelligence officer who spied for the United Kingdom and his daughter have resettled in New Zealand after they were poisoned by Russia, according to a new report.
Senior government sources told the Sunday Times that Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia moved overseas after living for more than a year in an MI6 safe house. The father and daughter have been given new identities, a senior government source said.
In March 2018, the Skripals were found slumped on a park bench in Salisbury, England, foaming from the mouth.
British officials accused Russia of sending two hit men to smear a nerve agent on the door handle of Skripal’s home. The men were from the same Russian military intelligence unit where Skripal worked before he was accused of spying for Britain and imprisoned in Russia.
He was one of four convicted spies imprisoned in Russia who were part of a spy swap with the West in 2010. After his release, Skripal was given refuge in the U.K., where he kept a low profile but lived under his real name.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was prime minister at the time of the swap, had long vowed revenge on spies who defected.
“A person gives over his whole life for his homeland and then some bastard comes along and betrays such people,” Putin said. “How will he be able to look into the eyes of his children, the pig. Whatever they got in exchange for it, those 30 pieces of silver they were given, they will choke on them. Believe me.”
If they didn’t die, he said, they would still spend their whole lives in hiding “with no ability to speak with other people, with their loved ones.”
Eight years later, the former spy and his daughter were fighting for their lives after being poisoned with Novichok, a Soviet-era chemical nerve agent.
Russia has denied being behind the attack, but more than 20 countries, including the United States, expelled dozens of Russian diplomats after the incident.
