The Atlantic

The Russian Ex-Spies Who Got Poisoned in Britain

What happened to Sergei Skripal?
Source: Toby Melville / Reuters

When Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia both suddenly collapsed onto a shopping center bench on Monday, it immediately looked suspicious. The two had been out together in the southern English city of Salisbury, and there was no apparent reason both would have taken ill at the same time. But there were reasons to think something else was going on. After all, Skripal had served for several years in Russian military intelligence, the GRU—and then, according to

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic5 min readSocial History
The Pro-life Movement’s Not-So-Secret Plan for Trump
Sign up for The Decision, a newsletter featuring our 2024 election coverage. Donald Trump has made no secret of the fact that he regards his party’s position on reproductive rights as a political liability. He blamed the “abortion issue” for his part
The Atlantic4 min readAmerican Government
How Democrats Could Disqualify Trump If the Supreme Court Doesn’t
Near the end of the Supreme Court’s oral arguments about whether Colorado could exclude former President Donald Trump from its ballot as an insurrectionist, the attorney representing voters from the state offered a warning to the justices—one evoking
The Atlantic4 min read
Hayao Miyazaki’s Anti-war Fantasia
Once, in a windowless conference room, I got into an argument with a minor Japanese-government official about Hayao Miyazaki. This was in 2017, three years after the director had announced his latest retirement from filmmaking. His final project was

Related Books & Audiobooks