Wiltshire pair ‘poisoned by nerve agent’
A man and woman found unconscious in Wiltshire were poisoned by Novichok – the same nerve agent that poisoned ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal, police say.
The couple, believed to be Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess, are in a critical condition having been found unconscious at a house on Saturday.
Alexander Mercouris has written at length about the outsized impact of British individuals, especially in the intelligence services, on pushing the Russiagate conspiracy theory to annul Trump’s stated desire for rapprochement with Russia.
With the Trump-Putin summit in Finland coming up on July 16, the timing is certainly impeccable. Forcing a sour end to the FIFA World Cup – during which Russian realities have been surprising British fans to the upside, relative to what they had been led to believe by their media – is an additional bonus.
That said, I’ll give them one thing. The Eternal Anglo is certainly much better at this false flag thing than the hapless khokhols, whose Babchenko “assassination” scheme collapsed within a day and seems to have been no more than a banal corporate raid by the SBU security service. I expect this story to dominate the airwaves in another couple of days.
Not sure this is a smart thing.
It makes the original Skripal case look even more suspect, even more like a false flag operation.
Or pure British incompetence.
The Skripal affair is already buried by D-Notices. The links to the Trump dossier were unpublishable by MSM. This one will be as well, one assumes. The unfolding of this will be very interesting.
Russia vs England, the dream semifinal of this World Cup (for hooligans), is still on track.
This would be very confusing.
English Youtubers were already surprised that most England fans at the World Cup, were actually Russians in disguise.
This guy at 2:35 in the video:
https://youtu.be/ybDOc6E0PAY?t=2m34s
We were friends during America’s Civil War, before we stupidly let the Jews into our country. One day we will be friends again.
Or our poisonous elites will nuke us both!
God bless Russia. Happy Independence Day.
Apologies in advance, if I can continue talking offtopic.
It’s well known that many English fans have been scared away by the media hysteria in recent months, from visiting the World Cup. Obviously the mysterious Skripal story is part of this situation.
As a result, the number of English fans has been historically low for a World Cup. In the game between England and Colombia, it was surreal to see media hysteria translated into football stadium dynamics – as Colombian fans were much more numerous than English fans, even though obviously England is relatively near and rich, and Colombia far away and poor.
–
There is a pleasant English kid on YouTube that has been explaining this a lot to England fans, and getting more and more popularity online – and he has even developed now perhaps too rosily coloured glasses about the country from the World Cup.
I wonder if a lot of English fans are going to flood Samara in the next few days for the match with Sweden, even if it’s too late for them to get tickets.
–
Pass on the blonde girl.
I feel like Russians try to much to promote their “Nordic-lite” women instead of more Russian looking women, who are usually more attractive.
While it’s true that Nordic-lite includes angels like Kournikova and Sharapova, I’m really not crazy about the blondes that look like the one featured in this vid.
The woman in the picture is some kind of (ex) porn star – Natalya Nemchinova. She supports the team in a lot of games.
https://triboona.ru/uploads/posts/2018-06/15302854932nat21-640×328.jpeg
Expect anti Russian news to the max in the British press in the next few days if a Russia-England semifinal in the World Cup comes about
she’s either had some work done or the years are starting to catch up with her. In her earlier pics she looks great.
Not just British fans. I recall someone here forcefully predicting an early Russian demise in a loss to Spain :)…
The Skripal saga is priceless. It looks like a disgruntled Porton Down chemist is having a go at it. Most crime is individual, as is most rule-breaking. We are socialised to suspect a team effort behind any unusual event. The reality is the opposite, most out-of-ordinary events, like random poisonings, are individual acts. It is hard to conspire (or collude) in general, it is even more hard to conspire to do something weirdly criminal. As with the antrax case, there is often just an oddball insider behind it. The conspiracies to take advantage of these acts happen afterwards (we see you Boris, we know what you are doing).
I was hoping to find out more about the Ukrainian false flag operation regarding Babchenko, unfortunately the links quoted in the thread didn’t help much? One wasn’t working, the other led to an open thread where perhaps buried in somebodies 247th comment something useful might appear? I’ll have to take your word for it, Anatoly, that it was a strange khokhol/SBU operation. 🙂
(thank God for the mighty Moskal!)
AK: Link fixed. I suggested the theory the day before on the Open Thread: “The proposed killer (who went straight to the SBU) was a Ukrainian nationalist and Right Sector member. The contractor was the owner of a weapons factory who supplied the ATO. It would be hilarious if this was actually a straight out corporate raid.“
It’s just different lighting in the different photos (same people look different in different photos).
But she just participates in a lot of strange underground porn videos that go viral now. It’s cool she support the team, but media should probably use a different type of model to promote as the “most beautiful fan” – using her is kind of a distraction.
The original Scripal affair had some “logic” to it – that is if you are a moron. Since the victims were (ex) Russians on a foreign soil – the most logical conclusion one could reach was that the perpetrators were Russians too. Makes sense –right? It’s a brilliant, brilliant reasoning.
If for example, a Swedish tourist gets murdered in – let’s say – Cancun, the most likely suspect would – of course be another Swede. Because, you see, only a person of a same nationality would know the genetic weak spots of his compatriots and thus make the assassination more likely to succeed.
The fact that the Swede in our example was visiting a crime ridden destination where there would be plenty of local talent to choose from as suspects in the crime, has no bearing on the original line of reasoning.
That’s why the Wiltshire poisoning, or Scripal version 2.0 makes no sense at all. Since the victims are both British, how does implicating the Russians (again) comply with the “logic” used to “solve” Scripal 1.0?
I guess one plausible explanation would be that the Russians were again looking for other Russians to murder on British soil, but they couldn’t find any fast enough, so they settled on killing British subjects. You see, the Russians are evil and opportunistic, if they can’t locate ideal candidates for assassination – other Russians – they would go after less perfect ones.
Why is PUTLER poisoning some random Englishmen? Is he going full Assad now?
I think the British media is currently trying to spin this as ‘left-over contamination’ (although, stupidly, officials are seen on TV carrying out investigation in a ‘contaminated’ area without proper safety precautions, bad for image…) which may ‘help explain how the Russians poisoned the Skripals’.
I think even the British realise how stupid it sounds to say Russian secret police tried to kill random English people. This is more likely intended to reinforce the British line on the first Skripals debacle and keep the issue from fading away.
I want Russia out. Croatia is a brotherly nation for Hungary, but more importantly, I hate the “Russians are doped to the hilt” meme, and I want it to go away.
Yes, it’s going to be a fantastic explanation for why they had to demolish the house.
British media and academia who publish about Russia have this strange view that everything that happens in Russia is somehow controlled by and the fault of President Putin, believing that a state of centralisation that is not accurate today exists.
No mention of wayward state officials, bad regional or local leaders, or rogue Chechens.
And occasionally they are even correct.
The ‘left-over contamination‘ is technically impossible and thus – as you said – just stupid. I think they will try another one: a ‘disinformation’ attack meant to confuse, as in some detective stories. By killing random others, the true perpetrators are trying to cover up their tracks.
Right. And the best time is – when else – right in the middle of the World Cup, as Putin is about to meet with Trump. Russian evil has no boundaries, no logic.
I think at this point it is very likely that the ‘nerve agent’ has not travelled all that far, Porton Down is right there. So are a few dozen chemists/technicians with access. Or maybe a few hundred. Some might even be a bit unbalanced. It has happened before. (How is Boris going to climb down from that tree?)
THE SKRIPALS ARE DEAD, murdered by Britain’s MI5 to extend the useful life of the anti-Trump “Steele Dossier.” This operation in turn is intended to serve as a springboard toward WAR WITH RUSSIA or at least a series of putsch-type take-overs in various West European countries and – less obviously – in the U.S. itself.
Some observers noticed the bizarrely formulaic and incurious press coverage back in May. This in itself is evidence of nefarious action by the transatlantic Deep State.
http://www.unz.com/tsaker/the-skripals-will-most-likely-never-be-allowed-to-talk/#comment-2337125
Yes it was confusing that I saw many in Englabd garb at the Nizhny Novgorod game but then when they passed I could here them talking Russian.
I’m not sure that’s true any more – if anything I’d say the domination of the UK by the neocons in the BBC has made it possible for them to get away with this kind of soap opera tier nonsense but only on a very shallow level – no one is genuinely angry cos either a) they don’t really believe it or b) the BBC has successfully killed overt patriotism.
The BBC neocons are doubling down partly cos of the lack of the old kind of reaction:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Jenkins%27_Ear
A lot of the fanatical England support came from the upper working class who used to have a lot of spending cash – England was probably among the top ten countries in the world for that demographic having high disposable income – that has changed dramatically over the last 20 years as now all their money goes into competing for houses in more expensive areas where their kids won’t be a minority.
I’ve seen the video and I’m skeptical…
“That said, I’ll give them one thing. The Eternal Anglo is certainly much better at this false flag thing than the hapless khokhols, whose Babchenko “assassination” scheme collapsed within a day and seems to have been no more than a banal corporate raid by the SBU security service. I expect this story to dominate the airwaves in another couple of days.”
It may wind up dominating the airwaves due to being pushed as part of a marketing campaign, but who’s the audience?
Me I notice the story, and don’t care. Here in proleville most never even see the story at all. And if they do, there is no discernible sign it even registered with them.
Things work differently somewhere else?
The subject of anti-Russian sports connected BS concerns the ineptitude of Julia Ioffe, The WaPo and JRL. An example of lousy journalism, which the establishment likes of JRL and The WaPo regularly promote over some qualitatively better options:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/07/02/russias-world-cup-win-was-good-for-putin-russian-dissidents-loved-it-anyway/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.896fe7093724
Excerpt –
In point of fact, Russia wasn’t stripped of its first place tally at Sochi, because the put mildly suspect claim of “systemic doping” hasn’t been conclusively proven.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Winter_Olympics_medal_table
Julia Ioffe doesn’t know what she’s talking about and will likely continue to get coddled by the establishment with its PC version of “fake news“.
Her “Russia illegally annexing Crimea” mantra is sheer hypocritical demagoguery given the examples of Kosovo and northern Cyprus.
A few of us still remember perfidious Albion in Pennsylvania
https://www.citizensvoice.com/news/teacher-offers-history-lesson-during-battle-of-wyoming-ceremony-1.2358136
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wyoming
It does have an effect, albeit a subtle one.
Here in Proleville, Pennsylvania, the rural and working class people are mostly Republican, so they naturally distrust the media. Thus they are inclined to support a more even-handed treatment of the Russian Federation. But I have to explain what (relatively little) I know about Russia; otherwise they will express an antipathy for Putin/Russia as though Russia is an enemy of ours.
I think the media’s almost universal condemnation of Putin is why working class people – who should be sympathetic to Russia – are instead vaguely anti-Russian. It doesn’t help that so many congressional Republicans are sissy internationalists like McCain and Lindsey Grahmnesty.
Remember also that the vast majority of prole American Republicans support Israel. On the surface this makes no sense; the Jewish bankers of America are the true enemy of our people, and Israel is extremely cynical towards our goy soldiers. But the narrative is so all-encompassing that it grips the proles like a python, and causes action against their best interests. I’m optimistic, though, that the narrative may be starting to very gradually lose its grip among American proles.
Propaganda works but there are certain ways it can backfire, for example when exposed to the underlying reality of Russia, immigration, Trump et cetera. The institutions peddling the propaganda then become discredited. Propaganda works better when it is an exaggeration of an underlying truth.
The explanation is now being fine-tuned:
Don’t blame this on the “eternal Anglo”, because there is no way such things can be undertaken without the authorization of the US deep state (the US deep state is just a more polite way of saying the jews).
The question is of course, how is it possible for the poison to seriously harm a couple months after the alleged poisoning, while leaving the alleged targets alive.
You’re right it does work on some level – mainly due to the media’s consistent message – but it’s very shallow for some reason, almost no genuine anger that i can tell – quite strange.
Well said John
The MH-17 incident was also exceptionally good timing, just as the Europeans were rejecting a tougher sanctions regime against Russia. I have no idea what actually happened, but the timing certainly raises suspicions.
https://twitter.com/GrahamWP_UK/status/1014830796090331137
Not just that.
There was an counter-offensive of the NAF going on at that same time after an UAF attempt to cut them off from Russia had failed.
Being seriously ill is the best way to lose weight, lost a lot myself when up picked up that nasty flu in China.
The discrepancies are difficult to ignore.
They said it was an extremely potent nerve agent, way more lethal than VX etc, and the reason the Skripals didn’t die on the spot (the onset of symptoms was long delayed too) and ultimately recovered so remarkably well was that it is so volatile and had already been diluted and/or evaporated significantly. This volatile nature was also cited as the reason they believed this binary agent had been mixed/prepared very shortly before it was “applied”.
Yet, it is somehow persistent enough to have escaped the huge military clean-up operation and affect two bums four months (!) later. And they also showed the same delayed symptoms and are seemingly still alive.
And also, in both incidents the symptoms are described as delirium, hallucinations and so on, indicative of a decapacitating agent rather than this insta-kill “Novichok” concoction.
There are many more things that do not make any sense, but these are the most glaring ones.
It is chemically impossible. The story also makes no sense at this point if either Russia or UK were behind it. Obvious reasons for Russia, but also for UK because any new attention to this ‘affair’ hurts UK at this point, the story has been successfully buried and the creaky narrative cannot withstand real scrutiny.
Now we see the incoherent pleading by UK to Russia: why don’t you just tell us what happened? That is a sign of a cocked-up narrative that even insiders are uncomfortable with.
Most crime is individual and local, and most of the time the victims are involved. To solve this one needs to figure out what Skripal was doing lately, why it happened right after Julia came to visit, who were they meeting on that park bench, and why is Porton Down 10 miles from there. And why they stiffed the waiter in Zizzi’s.
OT
Step 1
Make girls play a boys’ sport.
Step 2
Observe the sky-high injury rate.
Step 3
…
Step 4
Profit!
http://usatodayhss.com/2017/new-study-shows-that-girls-soccer-has-higher-per-capita-rate-of-concussions-than-any-other-sport
I don’t know who did what, I only know that the official British explanation doesn’t sound true or even logically possible. They have said things which seem to contradict each other.
When we exclude the logically impossible, we are left with 2 poisonings, 4 months apart, close to a chemical poison facility. Accidents happen, employees occasionally go nuts.
An easy test: let’s say the first two victims were not from Russia, how would this play out? Would we hear about the mysterious ‘novichok‘? Nerve agents are binary, they have a very short active life, not 4 months. Maybe the latest poor heroin addict was an accidental genius and somehow managed to mix them again. Let’s not forget that Stonehenge is close by, could it be the damn druids again?
Of course, BJ and the gang went for it, but I suspect that was pure opportunism.
I haven’t watched RT for a while, but some of their female presenters were so attractive I found it difficult to concentrate on what they were saying. I remember in particular one brunette who seemed very intelligent, the polar opposite of the blonde bimbettes on American TV.
Hockey is a girls’ sport and it’s always seemed quite violent to me, yet I’ve never heard complaints about injuries
It does make sense if a British conspiracy which does exclude many officials is behind it.
https://irrussianality.wordpress.com/2018/01/26/fearmongering-pure-and-simple/
Yes, that was Gavin “Russia should go away and shut up” Williamson, a guy responsible for Porton Down.
He is still struggling to get enough funds for his military.
https://www.businessinsider.de/britain-no-longer-tier-one-military-power-experts-say-2018-6?r=US&IR=T
The successful WM does not make the British anti-Russian coverage look good and said coverage is necessary for anti-Russian fearmongering.
I thought Arafat died of AIDS, who killed him using Polonium ? Mosasd ? I doubt it, Arafat was a fool, they loved him in Israel, why murder him, I don’t see the up side
It goes without saying that conspiracies are selective. In this case, obviously, nobody would tell BJ. But all things you are pointing to happened after the initial incident. They could be an opportunistic reaction by like-minded officials.
The reason I am leaning towards a non-state solution is because things are usually simpler than available possibilities. As a coherent narrative, none of the state linkages work well. Governments don’t use highly toxic materials unless it would be a critical crisis. To use it in a ‘park in Salisbury’, a very civilian, idyllic place, simply doesn’t add up. With Russia, the additional factor is the distance – intelligence organization like to be in control of the crime scene, consequences, accidents, etc…
Non-state solution could be almost anything, family or business disputes, mad poisoner, freak accident, bad luck… Among the possibilities, the local ones both geographically and in terms of a link to the victims, are more likely. Let’s not overthink it, on TV shows lazy writers spin elaborate stories, but real crimes are more focused. My hunch is that Porton Down proximity is not accidental. But who or how, we might never know. Suffice to say, ‘Russia is evil’ story will exploit it. But that doesn’t mean an intentional false flag.
Sounds reasonable.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/world-cup-2018/6580845/russia-world-cup-2018-porn-star-natalya-nemchinova-movies/
I was a bit skeptical about the World Cup but seeing the butthurt by writers at Liberal outlets like The Independent and Politico about how normies are ‘humanising’ Russia and Russians and how no one cares about their smears, it is going a lot better than Sochi went.
Who would like to sabotage Trump Putin meeting the most?
#1. China
#2. Iran (Syria and Hezbollah)
#3. Ukraine
#4. Turkey
#5. Germany
Who is going to benefit from the meeting the most?
#1. Israel
#2. Russia (?)
#3. American (?)
Arafat had international name recognition. He was a symbol of Palestinian independence movement that was recognized everywhere. He was against Hamas which was created with some help of Mossad in order to radicalize Palestinian movement and take away its legitimacy. Spreading memes that he was a fool who died of AIDS and they loved him in Israel is exactly what Israel would like people to believe. Don’t you see it?
The Swiss lab that tested Arafat samples stood by their claim that they detected Polonium in higher concentrations than normal.
For what it’s worth, they are now citing a Russian scientist that the Novichok is highly persistent. They claim that it can only disappear by evaporation, and apparently the heroin addict guy picked up a syringe (?) used to put it unto the door handle.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/novichok-nerve-agent-how-salisbury-amesbury-incident-happen-explained-latest-a8433166.html
This same guy said similar things about the not so lethal yet most lethal Novichok back in April. He was saying these from… Russia. Apparently the FSB murder machine has still not caught him. Not enough time, I guess, only a few months are not enough to murder a human inside the totalitarian dictatorship of Russia by the authorities of said dictatorship.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/novichok-scientist-fears-life-russia-lab-nerve-agent-salisbury-attack-vladimir-uglev-a8326076.html?amp
Why would the UK not like to sabotage it?
Or the US deep state? The latter of which has already done everything in its power to sabotage the normalization of Russia-US relations.
I am surprised that a voice of sanity in Britain has emerged from The Guardian of all places.
If the novichok was planted by Russia, where’s the evidence?
No one has a clue about the Wiltshire poisonings – though the most obvious motive is someone out to embarrass Vladimir Putin
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/05/novichok-wiltshire-poisoning-russia-putin-world-cup
Nerve gas is particularly persistent. It can last days or even, given the right conditions, weeks.
Of course, it has now been months since the Skripals fell ill.
The theory that the latest sick people might have had contact with some left over substance is nonsense.
Agree.
Potential upside to Russia posioning the Skripals: none
Downside: potentially vast.
Potential upside to Britain poisoning the Skripals: none
Downside: even bigger than the Russian one.
Neither makes any sense. There are thousands of much more prosaic but plausible explanations too.
E.g disgruntled employee, bureaucratic confusion in identifying the illnesses (made more confused by involvement of Russian victims and proximity to Porton Down) etc. etc.
Simon Jenkins is a reasonable bloke.
They would not dare false flag Russia from fear of what Putin might do. Putin it will be remembered would know he was being framed, and conclude there was a plot to force Russia into war. You may laugh, but the West has produced that reaction without meaning to with
May, the British PM, went to the town to show that everything was safe, and now she has been made to look complacent. The FSB agent only half applied the invisible coating to a door handle then threw the nerve agent dispenser away, and some poor fools found it.
In films secret intelligence agents are more competent than other people at killing and sex. When a friend asked French criminal Jacques Mesrine why he had claimed dozens of nonexistant murders in his book he replied “People like action”.
quite obviously this would be the people who are hysterically promoting the anti-Russian narrative which is
1) neocons
2) the corrupt western media-political class
3) the people who own the western corrupt media-political class i.e. the banking mafia
so the answer to your question quite obviously is the neocons and the banking mafia.
I was quite surprised by the tone of his articles, considering the hysteria and emotionalism that the average Guardian columnist tends to exude.
logically possible but ignores the context that pro-EU UK politicians have been quietly running down the UK’s armed forces for decades in preparation for abolishing them in favor of an EU army and there are no plans to reverse this – the only exception being some moves to re-arrange funding to provide more spec ops forces for neocon wars in the middle east.
when analyzing the behavior of the UK govt since at least the 1980s i think you have to start from the premise that 90% of UK politicians are either:
1) neocons or paid shills of neocons
2) banking mafia or paid shills of the banking mafia
2) pro-EU anti-nationalists
and look for reasons that fit.
my guess is the actual incident was a private affair – Skirpal getting a toxin from a Porton Down insider for whatever reason – who knows, maybe an oligarch wanted to kill a rival – but an accident happened during the transfer – and the neocon / banking mafia shills in the UK media-political class decided to promote the story as part of the anti-Russian narrative they’ve been running for years (despite the story not making any sense).
he’s an actual liberal (distorted by belief in the cultural Marxist blank slate ideology) as opposed to the anti-white fake liberals who make up most of the Guardian’s writers.
Where did you get the impression that they fear Putin?
They are constantly talking shit about him.
There is no real fear of him.
Unlike the Soviets, the West does not fear RF, hence your AA example does not apply.
It could be:
UK doing it as a false flag (again, not necessarily out of sheer competence, quite the opposite, actually)
a third country doing it as a false flag
UK doing it for other reasons (related to Skripal’s activities), but then politicians jumping on the story (from here on all explanations naturally involve politicians jumping on the bandwagon with their “Putin did it” “explanation”)
a third country doing it for reasons other than a false flag (related to Skripal’s activities)
a Porton Down employee doing it for personal reasons (which could be whatever related to the Skripals’ activities or unrelated)
someone unrelated to Porton Down doing it for personal reasons (ditto)
Skripals trying to smuggle something poisonous (maybe they tried to smuggle it out of Russia and into the UK, or out of Porton Down and into Russia, or out of Porton Down and into the hands of some other intelligence service, or some private party, or something similar)
something else, which I didn’t think of.
Novichok is apparently different from other similar poisons in that according to one of its creators (who is still living inside of Russia) it was quite persistent. So I don’t think that we need to necessarily posit that the two poisoning cannot have been related (i.e. that the second one cannot have come from some leftover from the first poisoning).
What we can safely say is that Theresa May and Boris Johnson are lying when they say they know with absolute certainty that it was Putin personally behind it.
Here’s a debunking of the official story:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-07-06/debunking-first-piece-nonsense-skripal-20
Nonsense. Putin does not know for sure. He might be assured by FSB and GRU bosses: ‘It is not us.’ But he recognizes a possibility that some ‘rouge’ outfits might be involved.
Stop watching Bourne movies. Internationally assassinating someone with extra special nerve gas is not a country does by mistake.
Same as above only times a million. Creating a scurrilous rumour to embarrass Putin but with the risk of bringing down your own government and ending up in jail practically forever is so far outside the bounds of sane human calculation that I doubt anyone’s sanity for even imagining that this is possible.
Almost all “false flag” theories are garbage in exactly the same way.
“Hello, Ms May, I have a cunning plan to put some diplomatic pressure on Putin.”
“Thanks, sound good – might be fun. It better carry little risk for such a small potential gain though.”
“Well, it involves nerve gassing people on our own soil and, if caught, it would bring your government down, probably end up with you and me in jail and utterly ruin all of our lives”.
“You’re fired you retard.”
“Weeks” is extremely persistent. It has been months. More fake news.
That would be my guess, if we observe what actually happened and use basic probabilities. From the beginning there were a few key points:
– what was Skripal doing? he was involved (‘dossier’ also possibly comes in, but that is a stretch with only circumstantial evidence)
– why did it happen right after Julia came to visit?
– can Porton Down location be just a coincidence?
– who were they meeting on the park bench – they were not there to feed pigeons, they were meeting someone (see their Zizzy behaviour).
Based on that, if Skripal(s) were meeting someone connected to Porton Down to give or receive some material, it would fit the facts. (I also suspect that Litvinenko case was similar and that’s why UK has never published a full explanation.)
‘Novichok’ persistence should be tested. I suppose in a tightly packed syringe it could be semi-lethal after 4 months. But the syringe story introduces very odd behavioural questions about how it happened.
May has carefully avoided saying it outright, although I would hold her responsible for making sure that was the story as reported. She could point to her ‘weasel’ language, but that was quickly ignored by Boris, Russia-hating crazies in the London establishment, and the media. If you followed the March circus in the UK Parliament, only Corbin and May used careful language and stopped short of an outright accusation of Russia-Putin. But May allowed the imprecise allusions to be interpreted by the general hysteria, she could have pulled it back.
So the West would not have dared frame the Soviet Union under Andropov , but the West does not worry about framing Russia under Putin. The reason to be scared of making the USSR think they were being framed boils down to their ability to destroy the West in a nuclear exchange For the avoidance of misunderstanding that could lead to an engagement between Soviet and Nato forces, which both sides were anxious to avoid, both sides communicated honestly about facts. That is still the case with the RF and Nato.
But let us say Edward Snowden was poisoned in Russia and the Russians said they knew from forensics that American intelligence carried it out almost certainly on orders from president John McCain it (assume that John McCain is US President for the purpose of the analogy) . McCain asks the CIA director “did we have anything to do with this?” and the answer is definitely not. Yet Russia begins re-enforcing its conventional forces close to borders with Nato, and telling everyone that America cannot be trusted.
McCain is going to see Russia’s deliberately false accusation and military posturing as a breach of the understanding and at best an attempt to intimidate America. Then Julian Assange manages to get to Russia and he gets poisoned too. The Russians again say forensics clearly show it is CIA poison and McCain must have approved it . And Russia calls out the reserves and stages provocative military exercises with some aspects suggesting they are toying with the idea that they can successfully launch a first strike.
Now why would Russia behave as I have described. It would not be fooling America about American responsibility for the poisonings. But US officials would begin to worry that Russia had some kind of crazy people running it, and there was not telling what they would do next. Everything that then happened would be appear in a sinister light to the Americans, and a situation in which authorization to launch US nuclear weapons was too slow might begin to be discussed. The safeguards against a mistaken launch would be publicly de-emphasized in favor of a quick response to any attack by the RF.
It is in my opinion unlikely that Russia would have any motive to frame the US, and back in the real world Britain has even less motive to frame Russia. Too dangerous .
Because it is your speculation and the Russia in your head is not the real Russia which is constanstnly blamed and misblamed for things going “wrong” without striking back.
For the weaker side.
Guess who is the weaker side?
It is not Britain who is backed by NATO on this issue despite a lack of evidence for their narrative.
Maybe not. Depends on how strong and independent the Russian services are. Some low-ranking Japanese army units started a major war with China in the 1930s. They started a serious military confrontation with the USSR shortly thereafter.
So yes, it’s not something you’d normally expect, but maybe the services are too strong and too independent and too incompetent to top it off. I don’t know. I doubt anyone here knows.
Quite possible. It still doesn’t exclude a third country like Israel. They have been murdering people (including occasionally the odd Moroccan waiter mistaken for a PLO operative) in places like Norway or Dubai, using Irish etc. passports, and gotten away with it. So why would they think it was soooo extremely risky for them? What benefit did they get from murdering the odd Palestinian activist or whoever?
And actually, Israel has another reason, because Skripal was likely involved in the Steele Dossier. Which is bad for Trump. Trump is good for Israel. So, killing Skripal might be good for Israel, if they felt he might’ve had some dirt on Trump. Framing Russia might just be a bonus.
A Russian scientist involved in the Soviet chemical weapons program and still living in Russia said that it’s possible. Knowing nothing about the topic, I’d believe him at least to the extent that I wouldn’t exclude the possibility.
I thought that was the probable explanation for the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko. But now it has happened again. No, not twice. And the GRU do not go in for unmanly methods like poison. It was the FSB, Putin’s pet spiders.
If everyone said “Don’t annoy the Bear, it will rip your face off’, and your friend annoyed the Bear and the bear attacked him you might jump on the bear and get your face ripped off, or decide in the finest philosophic tradition to act on the principle that a man is responsible for himself when he does something that stupid .
The consequences would be even worse for Israel, with literally no reward whatsoever.
The use of nerve gas is the biggest difference. Also assasinating PLO operatives may cause some bemusement in the international community but they were at war with each other. False flagging Russia om British soil would totally alienate Russia and NATO…for what? Israel is on fair terms with Russia.
Again, risk v reward. For those Japanese units, it could have made sense. If indeed they did do that. In this case, it is entirely different.
That comment is only slightly less fictional than the contents of the dossier.
I’d love to see the context for that claim.
First hit here:
https://www.google.hu/search?q=russian+scientist+said+novichok+persistent&oq=russian+scientist+said+novichok+persistent&aqs=chrome..69i57.11552j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Which not did not happen.
What happened is that Britain isolated Russian citizens and Russia cannot do anything to end that.
What would be so bad consequences? What were the consequences of stealing hundreds of pounds of plutonium from the US? What were the consequences of deliberately sinking a US vessel, with dozens of dead? (The admiral investigating the latter happened to have the last name McCain. Yes, the father of our dear McCain.) What were the consequences of stealing US nuclear secrets? What were the consequences of a diplomat plotting to “take down” UK politicians?
It would be forgotten within a year. Believe me.
Russia would be more isolated. This would make Russia softer on Israel, especially if Israel didn’t itself join the chorus. As it happened indeed. Do you think Russia could make life harder for Israel in Syria?
It’s not such a serious difference. A few innocents were endangered, but Israel did manage to kill innocents once in a while. And guess what, nothing happened.
My point is not that Israel would survive unscathed (though that’s what I believe to be the case), but that, more importantly, that’s what Israeli leaders would probably believe. They have gotten away with much in the past. So what would make them cautious? Success breeds hubris. Israel has been very successful since its inception. I don’t think it’s inconceivable that the Israeli leaders would be cocky.
I sure as hell know literally nothing of the internal politics of the Russian services. I also doubt you know anything. I don’t think we can exclude the possibility of it making sense to someone within those services.
Steele worked together with Skripal, that’s a well-known fact. In fact, Skripal spied for him while both were in Russia. They frequently met in the UK, too. It’s also likely that Steele had a Russian insider source, whose information occasionally seemed strangely out of date. Why is it impossible that they’d worked together?
While I wouldn’t bet my house that Skripal worked for Steele on the dossier, if I had to bet, I’d bet that Skripal did participate in some form in it.
I mean, Steele had to put a lot of information about the Russian services. He frequently met a guy, who had a lot of such information from… having worked there. (And frequently meeting visitors from Russia.) Would he pass up on the chance to have him proofread the dossier? Or at least ask him a few questions, just to double check?
You are making good points.
I think we should add Polonium and Arafat data point to make connection to Israel in case of Litvinenko in the bigger picture.
Interestingly, Israel is a country with a huge Russian-speaking population and an influential diaspora in Russia, including many oligarchs. If just one of them were willing to help Israel, it could’ve done a lot. Though I don’t understand how Litvinenko could’ve been beneficial to them. But of course they could do a lot of things which superficially look like it was done by Russia. Including the Litvinenko and the Skripal case, or even the “hacking of the election” to favor Trump.
Of course Litvinenko could’ve been Berezovsky alone.
From the world-renowned BBC:
The fine print:
A google book search for”chlorinated organic chemicals” shows 5,610 results, all of which seem to be referring to environmental contamination, as in
and
This is the only “evidence” reported by the OPCW, yet the BBC willfully twists “chlorinated organic chemicals” into “chlorine gas”.
Truly amazing.
Saker on any subject tends to be so far off target that he is in danger of shooting himself. Skripal was playing outside his parole rules from multiple directions. That seems likely.
My blog. I did not update it to the finish but I stand by it.
https://waleseuroperussiafuture.blogspot.com/2018/03/revenge-of-spies-how-to-become-target.html
Not forgetting Skripal’s actual handler on behalf of Steele, Pablo Miller, who lives (lived) in Salisbury.
https://waleseuroperussiafuture.blogspot.com/2018/03/revenge-of-spies-how-to-become-target.html
Britain could not count on any help if it was false flag assassinating Russia defectors and framing Russia, and kidnapping Russians. If Britain was doing that to Russia, Britain might not have to fear invasion because Russia cannot get at Britain with conventional forces in any strength, but it can get at Britain with missiles.
Wow, what a way to conflate three very different issues and therefore prevent clear thinking!
Honestly, is this an on-purpose technique? Or is it a consequence of your own less than worked out ruminations?
I don’t mean the above rudely, even if it will unfortunately come across as such, so please humour me with an answer. Both are quite understandable, really.
Anyway, espionage does not equal killing people with nerve gas. Even stealing plutonium. Allies often steal from each other. Even with tacit support. Not that I have any idea if such a theft took place. I do know however that the Americans are constantly spying on us Brits. C’est la vie.
I don’t believe the Unz version of the USS Liberty story. Not only does it make no sense, but it is too obviously the final all too convenient argument for its (usually) lunatic proposers in some sort of Jews are the eternal curse craziness.
And the “take down” conversation was obviously nonsense bar talk. Akin to the Cambridge Analytica Sales pitch.
We have absolutely no evidence of Israel’s involvement. We have absolutely no evidence of Israel having a motive, neither to kill the Skripals nor to use poison gas to frame Russia – even though we would need both. You are betraying that you spend far too much time thinking about Israel…I suppose that is what Unz.com will do to you!
It is a small, irrelevant country that I have a little sympathy for, but which seems to live in a lot of people’s heads and dominate their thoughts, which I find bizarre.
Also, the Steele dossier is a farce. Even if Steele got Skripal to proof read it, Skripal would only be checking it for proper grammar and punctuation as it is an obvious work of fiction. And, there’s zero point in killing a proof-reader. Not that they even killed him! It would have been easy with a hit and run…and unsuspicious.
Not only do you need to provide a motive for someone to kill Skripal but also to frame Russia with poison gas and also you need to provide a motive for that someone to not actually kill Skripal – after all, he’s alive…and killing an old man who can be looked up in the address book is not exactly difficult.
If you try to kill someone with nerve gas you will guaranteed succeed. It is beyond absurd that people think anyone could be purposefully trying to kill the Skripals and that they would somehow fail while using nerve gas.
Again, pure fiction. There’s no reason to think of Israel. There’s no motive nor evidence. But nonetheless you are unable to help yourself. Reflect on that. Is it not strange?
The connection to Israel is via Syria. Skripals…, false flag gas attacks…
Connection to Israel not always is due to geographic proximity. Look at the case of New Zealand:
Soon after NZ PM Helen Clark took the stand against Israel spying and procuring NZ passports she was involved in strange aircraft incident:
The question is whether it is legitimate to consider a possibility that her plane was tampered with and that Israel agents where behind it to send a message and teach her a lesson that you do embarrass Israel and you do not say no to Israel in public. Was NZ taught a lesson? Did Israel stop operations in NZ? The answer to the 2nd question is no. Five years later:
Report: Israeli Killed in New Zealand Earthquake Was Mossad Agent
https://www.haaretz.com/1.5031097
Mossad spy ring ‘unearthed because of Christchurch earthquake’
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/newzealand/8649223/Mossad-spy-ring-unearthed-because-of-Christchurch-earthquake.html
There’s no connection between any of the things you have brought up. You merely mention three entirely different things and insinuate a crazy connection by mentioning them all in the same post.
Of course Israel spies on other nations. Any country with an intelligence service spies on other nations. This banal observation should not lead to any interesting conclusions though.
As for damaging a prime-minister’s plane to send a message, that’s retarded. Likely as not she would have reacted with fire and fury and as the prime-minister she would have been quite capable of grabbing the world’s attention.
Britain did frame Russia in the Skripal case and kidnap Russians and not only did they get away with it, their NATO allies sided with them without getting any evidence.
So, they did do that and did get help.
Blind solidarity between NATO states is strong.
The 44-year-old woman died.
It seems impossible that the Novichok agent failed to kill the intended targets yet managed to kill someone unrelated several months later.
Okay, there’s still one explanation. She was already ill, an alcoholic and a drug addict, so that’s why they couldn’t save her.
I just gave you a possible motive.
I don’t even think it was necessarily Israel, or a conspiracy. It could well be something else, as you suggest.
But it annoys me greatly that you deny the possibility of it being Israel. They certainly could have had a motive, for all we know, and likely had the means to do that.
That’s also Greg Cochran’s version.
Really? Plutonium is about the most closely guarded material a government can have. It’s worth many times more than gold. I don’t think there’s any other example of plutonium being stolen from a government, especially not such large quantities, especially not by a purported ally.
Anyway, you seem to think that all the bad stories about Israel are only spread by conspiracy theorists, and they make people like Greg Cochran believe in them.
Which is in itself a conspiracy theory.
Unless Sergei Skripal is a very unusual Russian, he drank a LOT. The FSB agent did not perform the application of the nerve agent to the doorknob of the house properly out of a very sensible desire to not risk getting contaminated him or her self, with the seal being broken he and all, he or she threw it away and then, women being curious creatures, she found the dispenser for the nerve agent and got some on herself. The man may not even have touched it, but merely touched her.
Cochran thinks the Russians used germ warfare at the battle of Stalingrad.
https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/war-in-the-east/
The KGB should return to applying the poson directly onto the targets. Back in the glory days of KGB the jobs were so sweet and clean that even the CIA refused to believe they were due to anything but natural causes.
OPCW:
https://www.opcw.org/news/article/opcw-issues-fact-finding-mission-reports-on-chemical-weapons-use-allegations-in-douma-syria-in-2018-and-in-al-hamadaniya-and-karm-al-tarrab-in-2016/
The dispenser may have been a syringe .