I have spent years waiting for Putin's assassins to strike

It is the revelation that should shake Britain to its core.

- BILL BROWDER

This week, the public inquiry into the 2018 novichok attack on former spy Sergei Skripal – a “reckless “demonstration of Russian power” that left deadly residue in a perfume bottle. That discarded bottle ended up in the hands of Dawn Sturgess, a 44-year-old mother from Amesbury, who sprayed it on her wrist, believing it was a gift. She died four days later, in excruciating pain.

Yvette Cooper put it plainly: “Putin and his agents are an active threat to Britain’s citizens, our security and our prosperity.”

Dawn was not a spy. She was not a political opponent. She was collateral damage in a mafia state’s vendetta - just as Sergei and many others were. And unless we confront this threat with clarity and resolve, she will not be the last.

I’ve spent nearly 20 years confronting the man at the centre of this crisis: Vladimir Putin. Today, as his shadow stretches across Europe - threatening war, poisoning our streets, and dangling sham peace deals - the stakes feel higher than ever. And I should know: having been declared a threat to Russian national security, I’ve had multiple attempts made on my life.

My fight with Putin began long before the tanks rolled into Ukraine. I was once the largest foreign investor in Russia, managing billions in the country’s stock market. That changed the moment I exposed the corruption hollowing out the companies I invested in - corruption that lined the pockets of Putin’s inner circle. His response was swift: I was expelled in 2005, our Moscow offices were raided, and my lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, uncovered a $230m tax fraud carried out by officials close to the Kremlin.

For that act of courage, Sergei was arrested, tortured for 358 days, and murdered in a filthy Russian cell in 2009.