Bellingcat: Russian scientists secretly developing Novichok nerve agent, and working with...

The investigative group Bellingcat has uncovered new details about Russia's development of the Novichok nerve agent, which was used against the former Russian agent Sergei Skripal in England in 2018 and the Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny in August.

After analyzing phone and travel records of Russian research scientists and officials, Bellingcat found frequent contacts between the director of a military science research institute in St. Petersburg and the agents accused of poisoning Skripal and his daughter Yulia with Novichok in the English city of Salisbury in March 2018. A British couple, Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley, were also exposed to the agent; Sturgess subsequently died.
The new Bellingcat report, published Friday, finds that scientists previously working for the Russian Ministry of Defense "were dispersed into several research entities which continued collaborating among one another in a clandestine, distributed R&D program."