The British government could transfer Sergei Skripal, the Russian double spy who appears to have survived an assassination attempt in England, to the US to protect him from further attacks. Last week the BBC reported that Skripal, which had been in critical condition for nearly a month, was "improving rapidly". Skripal, 66, who spied for Britain in the early 2000s and has lived in England since 2010, has been poisoned with what London claims to be a military-grade nerve agent. Almost all European countries, as well as Canada, Australia and the United States, expelled Russian diplomats in response to the attack on the former Russian spy. His daughter, Yulia, who is 33, also suffered nerve agent poisoning on the same day as her father, but appears to be surviving.
London newspaper The Sunday Times reported yesterday that British government officials are exploring the possibility of resettling Skripal and her daughter to an allied country. The newspaper said the countries considered for the possible transfer belong to the so-called "Five Eyes" agreement (also known as UKUSA), a decades-old pact between the intelligence agencies of Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, Canada and United States . The Times quoted "an intelligence source" who is familiar with the supposedly ongoing negotiations between the UK government and its UKUSA partners. The source allegedly told the newspaper that the Skripals "will be offered new identities," but did not explain how they would avoid attention after their images were published by all the major media in the world after last month's incident in England.
The anonymous source told the Times that "the obvious place of resettlement is America because they are less likely to be killed there and it is easier to protect them there with a new identity." The newspaper also reported that Britain's secret intelligence service, also known as MI6, is in discussions with its American counterpart, the Central Intelligence Agency, over the resettlement of the Skripals on American soil. But an article published Sunday in another British newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, said senior government officials in the United States are now worried that Russian defectors and former spies living there may not be safe. The newspaper quoted an unnamed "senior US administration official" as saying Washington has "huge concerns" that American Russians who have spied on America or who have publicly criticized the Kremlin might be targeted just like Skripal. The Times said it contacted the British Foreign Office trying to confirm whether the Skripals would be relocated overseas, but they got no response.