Odstock is a village and civil parish 3 miles (4.8 km) south of Salisbury in Wiltshire, England. The parish includes the village of Nunton with its nearby hamlet of Bodenham. The parish is in the valley of the River Ebble, which joins the Hampshire Avon near Bodenham.
Novichok is a group of nerve agents, some of which are binary chemical weapons. The agents were developed at the GosNIIOKhT state chemical research institute by the Soviet Union and Russia between 1971 and 1993. Some Novichok agents are solids at standard temperature and pressure, while others are liquids. Dispersal of solid form agents is thought possible if in ultrafine powder state.
A mental health trust provides health and social care services for people with mental health disorders in England.
Sergei Viktorovich Skripal is a former Russian military intelligence officer who acted as a double agent for the UK's intelligence services during the 1990s and early 2000s. In December 2004, he was arrested by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) and later tried, convicted of high treason, and sentenced to 13 years in prison. He settled in the UK in 2010 following the Illegals Programme spy swap. He holds both Russian and British citizenship.
The poison laboratory of the Soviet secret services, alternatively known as Laboratory 1, Laboratory 12, and Kamera, was a covert research-and-development facility of the Soviet secret police agencies. Prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the laboratory manufactured and tested poisons and was reportedly reactivated by the Russian government in the late 1990s.
Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust is an NHS foundation trust based in Salisbury that covers South Wiltshire, North and East Dorset and South West Hampshire. It gained foundation trust status in 2006. Its main site is Salisbury District Hospital, a large general hospital.
Vil Sultanovich Mirzayanov is a Russian chemist of ethnic Tatar origin who now lives in the United States, best known for revealing secret chemical weapons experimentation in Russia.
The Westminster Memorial Hospital is a small community hospital in Shaftesbury, Dorset, England. It provides about 20 in-patient beds, a minor injuries department, a range of out-patient clinics and other support services. It opened in 1874.
Fountain Way is a mental health facility in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. It is managed by the Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust which is based in Chippenham, Wiltshire.
Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust is an NHS foundation trust that provides physical, mental health and social care for people of all ages across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Swindon, Wiltshire, Bath and North East Somerset. Its services are delivered at community bases, hospitals, clinics and people's homes.
The Great Western Hospital is a large hospital in Swindon, Wiltshire, England, near junction 15 of the M4 motorway. It opened in 2002 and is run by the Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
Healthcare in Somerset, England was the responsibility of three clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) until July 2022. These covered the ceremonial county of Somerset, which comprises the areas governed by the three unitary authorities of Somerset, North Somerset and Bath and North East Somerset.
Healthcare in Wiltshire, England, is the responsibility of the integrated care board (ICB) for Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire.
The Poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal also known as the Salisbury Poisonings was a botched assassination attempt to poison Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military officer and double agent for the British intelligence agencies in the city of Salisbury, England on 4 March 2018. Sergei and his daughter, Yulia Skripal, were poisoned by means of a Novichok nerve agent. Both spent several weeks in hospital in a critical condition, before being discharged. A police officer, Nick Bailey, was also taken into intensive care after attending the incident, and was later discharged.
On 30 June 2018, in Amesbury, two British nationals, Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess, were admitted to Salisbury District Hospital in Wiltshire, England. Police determined that they were poisoned by a Novichok nerve agent of the same kind used in the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, 8 miles (13 km) away, almost four months prior. Sturgess died on 8 July, and Rowley regained consciousness two days later.
Denis Vyacheslavovich Sergeev, in Europe alias Sergej Fedotov is a Russian officer of military intelligence service GRU. He is suspected to be the local coordinator of the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal 2018 in the UK and the 2015 poisoning of Bulgarian arms dealer Emilian Gebrev in Sofia.
The Salisbury Poisonings is a fact-based television drama, starring Anne-Marie Duff, Rafe Spall and Annabel Scholey which portrays the 2018 Novichok poisonings and decontamination crisis in Salisbury, England, and the subsequent Amesbury poisonings. The series was broadcast in three parts on BBC One in June 2020, and has been shown in four parts elsewhere. It was created by Adam Patterson and Declan Lawn for Dancing Ledge Productions.
Tracy Daszkiewicz is a Deputy Director of Population Health and Wellbeing at Public Health England. She was formerly the Director of Public Health and Safety for the county of Wiltshire, England, where in 2018 she played a leading role in the response to the Novichok poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury.
On 20 August 2020, Russian opposition figure and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent and was hospitalized in serious condition. During a flight from Tomsk to Moscow, he became ill and was taken to a hospital in Omsk after an emergency landing there, and put in a coma. He was evacuated to the Charité hospital in Berlin, Germany, two days later. The use of the nerve agent was confirmed by five Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) certified laboratories. On 7 September, doctors announced that they had taken Navalny out of the induced coma and that his condition had improved. He was discharged from the hospital on 22 September 2020. The OPCW said that a cholinesterase inhibitor from the Novichok group was found in Navalny's blood, urine, skin samples and his water bottle. At the same time, the OPCW report clarified that Navalny was poisoned with a new type of Novichok, which was not included in the list of controlled chemicals of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
The Insider is an independent online newspaper specializing in investigative journalism, fact-checking and political analytics. It was founded in 2013 by Roman Dobrokhotov, a Russian journalist and the owner of the newspaper. The newspaper is known for exposing fake news in Russian media. The editorial office of the website is located in Riga, Latvia. Andris Jansons is the editor-in-chief of the website.
