Sergei Viktorovich Skripal (; born 23 June 1951) is a former Russian military intelligence officer who acted as a double agent for the UK's intelligence services during the 1990s and early 2000s. In December 2004, he was arrested by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) and later tried, convicted of high treason, and sentenced to 13 years in prison. He settled in the UK in 2010 following the Illegals Programme spy swap. He holds both Russian and British citizenship. On 4 March 2018, he and his daughter Yulia, a Russian citizen who was visiting him from Moscow, were poisoned with a Russian-developed Novichok nerve agent, and were admitted to Salisbury District Hospital in a critical condition. The poisoning was investigated by the British intelligence service as an attempted murder. On 29 March, Yulia was reported to be out of critical condition, and was "conscious and talking". A week later, on 6 April, it was announced that Sergei Skripal was no longer in critical condition. He was discharged from hospital on 18 May 2018. Early years Sergei Skripal was born in Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russian SFSR, on 23 June 1951. His father worked for a land improvement contractor, while his mother was employed with the local Council of Deputies. He grew up in the town of Ozyorsk, also in Kaliningrad Oblast. Education, military intelligence In 1972, Skripal completed the military engineering school in Kaliningrad named Zhdanov, located in the village of Borisovo (formerly Kraußen (Königsberg)) with the qualification of a sapper-paratrooper. He then studied at the Moscow Military Engineering Academy and subsequently served in the Soviet Airborne Troops where he was deployed to Afghanistan during the Soviet–Afghan War under the command of Boris Gromov. Skripal was co-opted to the military intelligence (GRU) from the Airborne Troops. In the early 1990s, he was posted as a GRU officer at the embassy in Malta. In 1994, he obtained a position in the military attaché′s office in Madrid, Spain. In 1995, according to the FSB and other sources, while in Spain, he was recruited to British intelligence by British intelligence agent Pablo Miller posing as Antonio Alvarez de Hidalgo. According to intelligence sources cited by The Times in March 2018, Skripal was first spotted for potential development as an asset by Spanish intelligence but was approached by the British recruiter around July 1995 and was given the codename 'Forthwith'. According to the FSB, Pablo Miller