The Skripal files : the life and near death of a Russian spy / Mark Urban.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Urban, Mark, 1961- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Skripal, Sergei, 1951-.

Skripal, Sergei.

Spies--Russia (Federation)--Biography.

Spies.

Spies--Great Britain--Biography.

Politics and government.

Poisoning.

Intelligence officers.

Great Britain.

Russia (Federation).

Intelligence officers--Crimes against--Russia (Federation).

Poisoning--Political aspects--Russia (Federation).

Russia (Federation)--Politics and government--21st century.

Genre:

Biographies.

Nonfiction.

Physical Description:

x, 310 pages ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

Life and near death of a Russian spy

Place of Publication:

New York : Henry Holt and Company, 2018.

Summary:

"The explosive story of the poisoning of the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and what it reveals about the growing clandestine conflict between the West and Russia. Salisbury, England: March 4, 2018: slumped on a bench, paralyzed and barely able to breathe, were a former Russian intelligence officer named Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. Sergei had been living a quiet life in England since 2010, when he was expelled from Russia as part of a spy swap; he had been serving a lengthy prison sentence for working secretly for the British intelligence agency MI6. On this Sunday afternoon, he and his daughter had just finished lunch at a local restaurant when they started to feel faint. Within minutes they were close to death. The Skripals had been poisoned, not with a familiar toxin but with Novichok, a deadly nerve agent developed in southern Russia. Was this a message from the Kremlin that traitors would not escape violent death, even on British soil? As Sergei and Yulia fought for their lives, and the British government and their allies sought answers, relations between the West and Russia descended to a new low. The Skripal Files ... lays bare the new spy war between Russia and the West. Mark Urban, the diplomatic and defense editor for the BBC, met with Skripal in the months before his poisoning, learning about his career in Russian military intelligence, how he became a British agent, his imprisonment in Russia, and the events that led to his release. Skripal's first-hand accounts and experiences reveal the high stakes of a new spy game that harks back to the chilliest days of the Cold War."--Dust jacket.

Contents:

Prologue: An unlawful use of force

Part one. Agent. The pitch

Sergei's journey

Into the darkness

Master race no longer

Breakthrough in Madrid

Inside the glass house

The view from Vauxhall

Back into the light

Part two: Prisoner. Inside Lefortovo

Litvinenko

IK 5

Hitmen

The fateful letter

Operation Ghost Stories ; Deliverance

Christie Miller Road

Part three. Target. Sunday march

The fight for survival

'Highly likely' Russia

The investigation falters

The information war

The long road to recovery.

Notes:

Includes index.

ISBN:

9781250207739

1250207738

9781529006896

1529006899

OCLC:

1052796720