Russian President Vladimir Putin must have ordered the Novichok nerve agent attack on Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in 2018 , in a "reckless" display of power that led to the death of an innocent woman, a U.K. public inquiry concluded on Thursday.

Skripal was found along with his daughter Yulia slumped unconscious on a public bench in the southern English city of Salisbury in March 2018 after Novichok was applied to the front door handle of his nearby home.

About four months later, mother-of-three Dawn Sturgess, 44, died from exposure to the poison after her partner found a counterfeit perfume bottle which Russian spies had used to smuggle the military-grade nerve agent into the country, the inquiry said.

'Overwhelming evidence of Russian state involvement'

The Skripals, and

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