Salisbury poisonings: Third Russian linked to UK and Catalonia visits before key votes, report claims

CNN — New details have emerged about a third Russian linked to the 2018 Salisbury poisonings by the investigative website Bellingcat. Cross-checking multiple travel record databases provided by whistleblowers, including flight bookings and border crossings, Bellingcat’s information shows Fedotov spent six days in the UK at the end of March 2016. Family photo/Pixel 8000 Ltd Sensitive time in UK CNN reported last week that Fedotov visited Bulgaria twice in 2015, at the same time as a Bulgarian arms trader and his son were admitted to hospital on two separate occasions after having been poisoned, prompting a joint investigation between UK and Bulgarian authorities, according to comments made in Sofia this week by Bulgaria’s General Prosecutor. On a call with reporters, Peskov said: “There is only one question really – how is it possible that poisoning by some military grade agent in Europe went unnoticed in 2015 and why are we only now finding out about this?” Responding to Bellingcat’s report, Stephen Kinnock, a member of Parliament for the UK’s opposition Labour Party and who sits on the country’s Committee on Exiting the European Union, told CNN: “For many years now the Kremlin’s foreign policy has been based on a strategy of ‘divide and rule.’ “There is incontrovertible evidence of armies of Russian social media bots being deployed to influence domestic political agendas across the EU and the US. Last year the National Crime Agency announced it was investigating the Brexit campaign donor Arron Banks, a businessman with ties to Russia’s ambassador to London, amid suspicions his campaign may have obtained money from “impermissible sources.” Banks’ support for Leave EU in the run up to the 2016 vote made him the biggest individual donor in British political history.