Bi-bi-si found out the details of the biography of Alexander Mishkin, the international group of investigative journalists considers the officer of the main Directorate of the General staff of the Ministry of defence of the Russian Federation (former GRU) suspects in the poisoning Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury.


Photo from bellingcat.com

Edition of Bellingcat and The Insider claim that Mishkin — the real name of the person attending in the spring of this year the UK under the name Alexander Petrov. The British police refused to confirm this information, but to deny it is not.

Alexander Mishkin studied well in school and was the local DJ in his native Loyga. His parents were not related to military service — his father worked in the forestry industry.

Bi-bi-si was able to communicate with native LOGI Denis Krasnov, who studied with Mishkin in the same school . He learned Mishkin and photos of his passport, which had previously published editions of Bellingcat and The Insider, and photos from UK visa Petrova published previously by the UK authorities.

Did you hear about resident Luigi Alexander Mishkin and his other compatriot named Marina Ciobanu. However, she failed to identify his photograph, citing the fact that long gone from the village.

“I studied with him in the tenth grade, but left without completing [Loyginskiy school],” said bi-Bi-si Veronica Rotaru-Balte about Mishkin. Another resident LOGI Nicholas Tulinov also said bi-Bi-si, that learned Mishkin at the pictures of Petrov and that he lived in Loyga.

“I studied the well-loved techno”

“He is older than the two classes was, said Bi-bi-si Denis Krasnov. — Well, not quite a close relationship, we lived on opposite sides of the village, just at the time knew each other. But companies are different from us with him,” remembered red. At school Alexander Mishkin was a good student, “four and five”, but graduated without a medal.

That Mishkin was born in 1979 in the village of Loyga at Archangel, said Bellingcat and The Insider. Bi-bi-si has been able to confirm this information from a source who has studied some Russian databases.

Loyga is a small town in Ustyansky district of the region. The nearest major city Kotlas — 110 kilometers. Road paved roads in the village there, and to get to LOGI is possible only by narrow-gauge railway or by car through the roads in the cold season.

Since Mishkin and red in school, the number of residents and so small Luigi fell even more. “In our time the population was somewhere 3500-3700 people, now like 900,” said Krasnov.

As a schoolboy, Mishkin, the memories Krasnov, was fond of games consoles and music. “At that time console gaming was Sega and the like [them and was fond]. Disco led in the village. More on the Western [music] the gradient was from him. Mo-Do [Italian DJ] E-Type [Swedish pop musician], in short, techno,” says Krasnov.

According to him, Mishkin himself played a little guitar, but “not public”.

Parents are entrepreneurs

Mishkin, the story of his countryman, lived in Loyga with her parents and younger sister Maria. “Mom he didn’t remember where he worked, and his father at his office in the forestry work”, — said Krasnov. In the late nineties parents Mishkin moved from LOGI in Lomovatka in the Vologda region and took away his sister, said Krasnov. Alexander remained in Loyga with my grandmother because I graduated from school.

Bi-bi-si found that parents Mishkin — Eugene and Tatiana Mishkin — were married in 1978 in Loyga, but in the mid 1990s indeed moved to the village Lomovatka. Mishkin’s father worked in the local logging companies, in particular, one time he was Director of the “Lomovatskaya timber industry” and owned a small share in the companies “Vologdales and Drevexport” (data “SPARK-Interfax”). In July, he was 63.

In the book “the Forest complex of the Vologda region” you can find photos Mishkin-the senior together with a team of lumberjacks. There he signed (perhaps wrongly) the Director of “Lomovatka-Les”.

At the local enterprise “Lomovatka-Les” worked and the mother Mishkin (at least until 2007), which still owns them lomovatskaya apartment (Rosreestr). She is now 59 years old. Calls Bi-bi-si, she did not answer.

In the middle of 2000-x years the father and son Mishkin also bought an apartment in Murmansk, but after a few years sold it.

Based on the page his mother in the “Classmates”, it is possible that Alexander Mishkin could be a daughter.

“Like lives in Moscow”

“He is after the 11th class in the military did, just don’t know where, well and then went on specialty. 15 years I’ve never seen, like he lives in Moscow”, — said Krasnov.

As found by bi-Bi-si, as of 2007, Mishkin was registered in the house № 12 on the street Akademika Lebedeva in St. Petersburg. According to Google, this building near the Military medical Academy (VMA).


The building on the street of Academician Lebedev, 12 is directly opposite the hostel of the Military medical Academy. Kirov. Petrov-Mishkin could live here at the end of 2000-ies. Image: Google Maps

VMA is the main Russian center for professional training of military doctors. At the Academy six faculties of military training and one faculty training and improvement of civil doctors. Among the six military has a faculty for training of doctors for the Navy.

Bellingcat reported that Petrov-Mishkin graduated from one of the “elite military medical Academy”, where he trained to be a military doctor for the Russian Navy.

On the website of the Ministry of defense said that the cadets of the faculty for training of doctors for the Navy, or the “fourth Department” among other things, taught radiation safety on the coastal objects and ships with nuclear power installations, familiar with the medical aspects of consequences of radiation accidents at various facilities of the Navy.

In the first half of the 2010s Mishkin changed the registration address for the building is on khoroshevskiy highway in Moscow, where is located the headquarters of the Chief of the General staff of Russia (former GRU). Bellingcat, citing its own sources reported that Mishkin moved to Moscow no later than 2010.

Given that the training of the medical case at the naval Academy lasts six years, Mishkin could enter the Academy in 2001 or later. “Fontanka”, in turn, found that Mishkin after school until 2001, he served as a conscript in military intelligence in the Murmansk region. After the army he moved to St. Petersburg and entered the Academy, where he supposedly drew the attention of the representatives of the Main Directorate of the General staff.

Another hero?

Krasnov also claims that about 10 years ago Mishkin “received the Hero of Russia”: “Just when a lot of people talking about it.” Bi-bi-si does not have official confirmation of this information on the portal of legal information of the presidential decree on awarding Alexander Mishkin could not be found.

Earlier it was revealed that the title of Hero of Russia Anatoly got Chapiha, which, presumably, went to Salisbury, under the name of Ruslana Bashirova. Name Chepiga engraved on the stele at the monument to Rokossovsky among other graduates of the far Eastern higher military command school, was awarded the title of hero of Russia.

In the application for a new passport (surname) Mishkin indicated address in the Moscow district Chertanovo, found Bi-bi-si. But, according to the Federal registration service, at this address lived a completely different Petrov. Nevertheless, the current owner of the apartment for several years received fines for traffic violations in the name of Alexander Petrov.

Bellingcat and The Insider claim that Mishkin has participated in special operations in Ukraine, Transnistria and Western Europe. More information about the agent who used the alias Petrov, the authors plan to submit on October 9.