Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday that he knows nothing about anyone named Anatoly Chepiga — the military intelligence colonel investigative reporters say is the real identity of Salisbury attack suspect “Ruslan Boshirov.” Peskov redirected journalists’ questions to the Russian Defense Ministry, while promising to review the reports about Chepiga.
“Like you, we’re just learning about this investigation released in the media that talks about certain people resembling certain other people,” Peskov told reporters. “We are operating on information announced by the president and later repeated by the civilians themselves [‘Alexander Petrov’ and ‘Ruslan Boshirov’],” Peskov told reporters.
On September 26, Bellingcat and its investigative partner The Insider claimed to have “established conclusively” the identity of one of the suspects in the poisoning of Sergey and Yulia Skripal, and in the homicide of British citizen Dawn Sturgess, unmasking “Ruslan Boshirov” as a highly decorated GRU colonel named Anatoly Chepiga.
For more about the Salisbury suspects
- GRU colonel, Hero of Russia, Chechen War vet Journalists say they've figured out who ‘Ruslan Boshirov’ really is
- After a Salisbury suspect's passport records leak, Russian journalists find a phone number in the documents possibly tying him to the GRU
- The Salisbury suspects' interview with Russian state television only raises more questions