A leak of Russian government data about the suspects in the Salisbury poisoning may provide a rare insight into how Russia’s military intelligence agency provides cover identities for its agents abroad. The passport holders include a former Russian military attache who was expelled from Poland for espionage in 2014 and is alleged to be tied to an attempted coup in Montenegro. The passport information was retrieved from a Russian government database, the sites said. It was not clear how they gained access to that database, although some Russian passport data has been leaked online before. Other elements of Petrov and Boshirov’s passport information also indicated they are not ordinary citizens.

Source: The Guardian September 23, 2018 11:53 UTC