Seven years after the quiet English city of Salisbury became the unlikely stage for an international chemical weapons attack, the final report into the 2018 Novichok poisonings has been published, casting a long shadow over the victims, investigators, and the broader community. The incident, which began as a mysterious medical emergency, quickly escalated into the largest counter-terrorism investigation in British history and triggered a diplomatic crisis that reverberates to this day.
It all began on March 2, 2018, when two men traveling under the names Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov landed at Gatwick Airport from Moscow. Over the next two days, the pair moved through London’s train stations and eventually made their way to Salisbury. According to Neil Basu, the head of counter-terrorism policing at the time, their initial trip was judged to be reconnaissance. “We assess that this trip was for reconnaissance of the Salisbury area and do not believe that there was any risk to the public from their movements on this day,” Basu explained, as reported by BBC News.
On March 4, the suspects were recorded on CCTV near the home of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy living in the UK, just moments before the attack. By 4:15pm, Skripal and his daughter Yulia, who had arrived from Russia the previous day, were found unconscious on a bench in the city center. The city’s tranquility was shattered, and the race was on to determine what had happened.
Samples sent from Salisbury District Hospital soon revealed the presence of Novichok, a military-grade, odorless, and colorless nerve agent developed by the Soviet Union. The revelation, confirmed by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, marked the first use of a chemical weapon on European soil since World War Two, a fact that Neil Basu would later describe as a “state-sponsored assassination attempt on British soil.”
The poisoning of the Skripals was only the beginning. As the investigation unfolded, the scale of the threat became clear. The public health team in Salisbury and Amesbury, led by Tracy Daszkiewicz, scrambled to keep thousands safe from a substance that could be lurking anywhere. “When we work on major incidents they are often marked and defined by mass casualties and big numbers, you hear it reported as ‘only one person died’,” Daszkiewicz reflected in an interview with BBC News. “Well, it’s not only one person, that person was a daughter, a sister, a mum, a friend and a partner. That one is too many.”
On June 27, 2018, the tragedy deepened. Charlie Rowley, a local resident, found what he thought was a discarded perfume bottle in a charity collection bin. Three days later, his partner, 44-year-old Dawn Sturgess, unsuspectingly sprayed herself with its contents. She was fatally poisoned by a “significant amount” of Novichok. Rowley himself was also hospitalized but eventually recovered. The incident, occurring just eight miles from the original attack, prompted another major incident declaration and a murder investigation.
The impact on those tasked with responding was profound. “You feel personally responsible for it, that’s the only way of putting it,” Basu said. “Sometimes in my more lucid moments, I understand that we did everything we possibly could – short of shutting the country down – but that’s not enough for Dawn’s family, it’s not enough for Dawn, it’s not enough for Charlie her boyfriend. It never will be enough, and you feel incredibly sad.”
Daszkiewicz, too, was haunted by guilt. She remembered meeting Sturgess at public health events and being struck by her dry wit. “I’ve talked with people about that feeling of guilt and I’m not the only one who’s used that phrase,” she said. “People have tried to talk me through the rights and wrongs of it, but it’s where I’m at, it’s what sits with me. In a way I’ve got comfortable with being uncomfortable with it.”
As the investigation progressed, British authorities identified Petrov and Boshirov as agents of Russia’s GRU military intelligence service, with real names Alexander Mishkin and Anatoliy Chepiga. Security sources pointed to a third GRU operative, Denis Sergeev (also known as Sergey Fedotov), as the on-the-ground commander. The Crown Prosecution Service authorized charges against all three, but Russia’s refusal to extradite its citizens meant they have never faced justice.
The political fallout was swift and severe. On March 12, 2018, then-Prime Minister Theresa May told Parliament it was “highly likely” Russia was responsible. Two days later, she announced the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats, calling the poisoning an “unlawful use of force by the Russian state against the UK.” Britain’s allies soon followed suit, expelling more than 100 Russian agents from 22 countries in what May described as “the largest collective expulsion of Russian intelligence officers in history.”
The Russian government denied any wrongdoing. President Vladimir Putin insisted there was “nothing criminal” about Petrov and Boshirov, while Downing Street maintained they were GRU officers who “used a devastatingly toxic illegal chemical weapon on the streets of our country.” In a much-publicized interview with Russian state media, the suspects claimed to have been mere tourists visiting Salisbury’s famed cathedral.
Meanwhile, Salisbury itself faced an arduous recovery. The Ministry of Defence declared the city decontaminated in March 2019, after an almost year-long military clean-up of 12 sites. The story entered the national consciousness, with the BBC docudrama The Salisbury Poisonings drawing more than 7 million viewers for its first episode in June 2020.
Despite the international attention and the painstaking investigation, the sense of unfinished business lingers. “How would I describe what happened? For me personally, a failure, because the three people we think orchestrated this did not get the justice they deserved which would have been a life sentence,” Basu admitted. “When you know who’s done something you want justice for the people they’ve harmed, and when you don’t get that justice it’s a terribly hollow feeling, but it can’t be anything like the damage it does to the bereaved. Dawn’s family didn’t get justice.”
Public hearings for the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry began in October 2024, concluding in December 2025 with the publication of Lord Hughes of Ombersley’s report. While the full findings are now public, the wounds left by the attack—on families, investigators, and the city itself—remain raw. The Salisbury poisonings stand as a sobering reminder of the reach of state-sponsored violence and the enduring quest for justice, even when it remains just out of reach.