By Mark Urban
Reviewed by Cipher Brief Expert and former Chief of Station, CIA Dan Hoffman
The Skripal Files, Henry Holt & Company, 2018
BBC Diplomatic Editor Mark Urban’s latest book is a gripping real-life spy thriller, which details the career and near death of Russian Military Intelligence (GRU) Colonel Sergey Skripal.
Drawing on extensive interviews he conducted with Skripal before the former spy was poisoned with the soviet-manufactured nerve agent novichok, Urban illuminates Skripal’s fateful decision to commit espionage on behalf of British Intelligence (MI6). But the Russians caught him, sentenced him to a Soviet penal colony, and then ultimately released him in a 2010 “spy swap.”
Skripal was the first MI6 penetration of the GRU since Colonel Oleg Penkovsky, whose reporting on Soviet nuclear capabilities was crucial to a peaceful resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Urban, who served in the British Army and in 1988 embedded in the same Soviet regiment in Afghanistan in which Skripal had previously served, established the highest level of rapport and trust with Skripal. Masterfully describing MI6’s recruitment of Skripal and follow on clandestine meetings, Urban demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of the art of intelligence as well as historical and current rivalries among Russian Intelligence services.
The author also eloquently describes Skripal’s complex and compelling character. A brave patriot who served with distinction in the Soviet Airborne Forces, Skripal covertly infiltrated China, in his words, “never with a visa, only with Kalashnikov.” Urban also portrays the spy as a devoted husband, father, and son. He also addresses the GRU's rejection of Skripal’s decision to resign in 1992, following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The books depicts Skripal being passed over for promotion to Major General three times, and describes him as 'despondent' over the endemic political and economic corruption in Russia during the Yeltsin era, leading to a deep, personal friendship with the MI6 officer who recruited him.
It's important to understand that Skripal retired in 1999, just as Vladimir Putin was seizing power. With rampant inflation having reduced his meager pension to a pittance, Skripal continued to meet his MI6 handlers, until a Russian counterintelligence investigation placed him under suspicion and ultimately led to his arrest in 2004. Urban recounts the horrific consequences to Skripal’s family, particularly his cancer-stricken wife and alcoholic son, while Skripal was serving a prison sentence at Penal Colony IK5.
Through it all, Skripal retained his humanity, toughness, and will to live. An accomplished athlete who competed in boxing at the national level, Skripal continued even in prison, to stay physically fit and emotionally strong.
The U.S. Department of Justice Ghost Stories operation, which culminated in the arrest of Russian illegals in June 2010, resulted in that spy swap that set Skripal free, but Putin, who himself served as a KGB officer who once supported the Soviet illegals program in East Germany, delivered a post swap admonition about how “traitors always come to no good.” Presaging the attempted murder of Skripal years later, Putin menacingly threatened the Russians who were released in the spy swap. Putin stated simply when asked about dealing with traitors, that they “have their own code.”
Urban concludes his extraordinarily thorough account of Skripal’s life with the most detailed description of the novichok poisoning, including heroic efforts by British medics during the “golden hour” after Skripal was discovered with his daughter Yulia on a park bench near their Salisbury home.
(Following the publication of The Skripal Files, investigative journalism site Bellingcat identified the two GRU officers responsible for Skripal’s attempted murder. The Netherlands later accused four GRU officers of launching a cyber attack on the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which was investigating the novichok attack on Skripal. There is no longer any doubt that the GRU mounted a brazen clandestine operation designed to kill Skripal with a deadly nerve agent.)
Mark Urban deeply honors Sergey Skripal’s legacy and triumph over personal tragedy during a period of confrontation between Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the West, which shows no signs of abating. Urban’s edifying contribution to this heretofore untold espionage story is essential reading for those interested in deciphering the riddle wrapped inside an enigma of Russian spy craft, as well as the Kremlin’s ongoing and multi-faceted threats to the West.
This book earns a prestigious four out of four trench coats.
See also a review of The Skripal Files by Former Senior Member of the British Foreign Office, and Cipher Brief Expert Nick Fishwick here...
