The Secrets of Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Bushirov

Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Bushirov were merely the aliases of two Russian espionage agents, whose real names were Alexander Mishkin and Anatoly Jipnika. The passport numbers of their aliases were only three digits different from dozens of other documents which depicted their likeness. Despite their willingness to deny responsibility for the chemical attack, the Russian state was completely unable to deny the existence of the two agents who carried it out. After a series of bomb attacks in the Czech Republic, Mishkin had been declared a wanted criminal by the Czech police in 2014. But intelligence agencies all over Europe knew this was a weak attempt at concealing Russian involvement. An earlier version of this article stated that Serjay