Not possible to identify a GRU agent based on passport data: Russian Interior Ministry

Russian Deputy Interior Minister Igor Zubov, on Wednesday said that it was impossible to verify whether a person is a GRU (Russian federation intelligence agency) employee based on the passport database.

Zubov was commenting on media reports on Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, the two Russians suspected by United Kingdom for alleged involvement in the Salisbury poisoning incident.

Last week, Bellingcat and The Insider reported that their joint investigation confirmed, through uncovered passport data, that the two Russian nationals were linked to Russian security services. The media reports said that such assumption was based on the fact that these men's internal passports under these names were issued in 2009, and no records allegedly existed for these two individuals prior to this year.

"Of course, it is impossible. It is impossible to understand something like this based on the Federal Migration Service's database," Zubov said.

.