Twenty year old promotion board photo at right.
Colonel Sergei Skripal, who was released by Russia in a prisoner swap for the SVR-"illegals" in 2010, was found alongside a younger woman on Sunday evening in Salisbury, England. British authorities say he and his partner, who is also in a critical condition, were exposed to an unknown substance. Here are a number of considerations that British investigators will bear in mind.
SVR-illegals = Russian spy Anna Chapman and colleagues.
Skipping down a few paras.
Yet it also may or may not be notable that Skripal was found in Salisbury. After all, that town is just 35 miles from the Secret Intelligence Service's credibly reported field training center at Fort Monckton. Was Skripal training SIS officers? If so, he would have been a higher priority target for Putin.
Timelines might also be relevant here.
Skripal was recruited by SIS in the 1990s at around the same time that Christopher Steele was a production officer serving in SIS's Moscow station. Considering Steele is regarded as one of the finest human asset recruiters in recent SIS history, it's possible he may have been the one to recruit Skripal in the first place. That would be relevant in that the Russians are believed to have been targeting Steele's sources since the publication of his infamous dossier about Donald Trump.
Ultimately, of course, we're just going to have to wait and see what happens here.
Related from the Mirror.