Posted on 03/13/2018 12:29:17 PM PDT by Kaslin
On March 4th, Russian defector and former British intelligence source Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found slumped over on a bench in the city center of Salisbury, clearly in distress. As first responders quickly discovered, the Skripals had been poisoned with a potentially deadly nerve agent.
But the damage was not limited just to them. Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey, one of the first officers to respond to the scene, also fell ill and was hospitalized after being exposed to the nerve agent. Furthermore, hundreds of local residents in the small Southern English town who came into contact with the Skripals or the restaurant and pub that they had been in that day had to decontaminate their belongings to prevent potential poisonings.
After two weeks of investigation, with the Skripals still in critical condition, the British government now firmly believes that the Kremlin is responsible for the attack. This is due in large part to the findings of investigators who have concluded that the Skripals were poisoned with a Soviet-developed nerve agent known as “Novichok.”
On Monday, Prime Minister Theresa May spoke to the British Parliament to publicly demand an explanation from the Russian government for the poisoning [emphasis mine]:
“It is now clear that Mr. Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a military grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia. This is part of a group of nerve agents known as “Novichok.” Based on the positive identification of this chemical agent by world leading experts at the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down, our knowledge that Russia has previously produced this agent and would still be capable of doing so, Russia’s record of conducting state-sponsored assassinations, and our assessment that Russia views some defectors as legitimate targets for assassinations, the government has concluded that it is highly likely that Russia was responsible for the act against Sergei and Yulia Skripal.
“Mr. Speaker, there are therefore only two plausible explanations for what happened in Salisbury on the 4th of March. Either this was a direct act by the Russian state against our country, or the Russian government lost control of its potentially catastrophically damaging nerve agent and allowed it to get into the hands of others.
“This afternoon, my right honorable friend the foreign secretary has summoned the Russian ambassador to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and asked him to explain which of these two possibilities it is, and therefore to account for how this Russian-produced nerve agent could have been deployed in Salisbury against Mr. Skripal and his daughter.
"My right honorable friend has stated to the ambassador that the Russian Federation must immediately provide full and complete disclosure of the Novichok program to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and he has requested the Russian government’s response by the end of tomorrow.”
May went on to link the attempted assassination of the Skripals with Russia’s aggressive foreign policy under President Putin, including its 2014 annexation of Crimea and subsequent support for rebels in Eastern Ukraine and the 2006 assassination of former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London. Vowing that harsh measures would be imposed on Russia for failing to cooperate with British authorities investigating the poisoning, May closed her remarks by re-iterating the point that her government sees the poisoning as an attack not just against the Skripals, but the United Kingdom as a whole [emphasis mine]:
“On Wednesday, we will consider in detail the response from the Russian state. Should there be no credible response, we will conclude that this action amounts to an unlawful use of force by the Russian state against the United Kingdom. And I will come back to this House and set out the full range of measures that we will take in response. Mr. Speaker, this attempted murder using a weapons-grade nerve agent in a British town was not just a crime against the Skripals. It was an indiscriminate and reckless act against the United Kingdom, putting the lives of innocent civilians at risk, and we will not tolerate such a brazen attempt to murder innocent civilians on our soil.”
On Tuesday, British foreign secretary Boris Johnson confirmed May’s ultimatum and stressed his appreciation for those that have spoken out against Russia in light of the attempted assassination, including now-outgoing U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson:
“What we’re doing today is giving Russia until midnight tonight to explain how it came to be that Novichok was used on the streets of Wiltshire. If they can come up with a convincing explanation, and obviously we will want to see full disclosure of that to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague. If not, then clearly we will want to be announcing the UK response, and that will come tomorrow.
“In the meantime, what we’ve been doing is talking to friends and partners, explaining what we see as the high likelihood of Russian state agency. And I’ve been very encouraged so far by the strength of the support that we are getting, I think in particular from President Macron of France, from -- I just talked to Sigmar Gabriel, my German counterpart, and from Washington, where Rex Tillerson last night made it absolutely clear that he sees this as part of a pattern of disruptive behavior, and increasingly disruptive behavior, malign behavior by Russia.
"The reckless use of chemical weapons -- a support for the reckless use of chemical weapons that stretches from Syria now to the streets of Salisbury. And I’ve been encouraged by the willingness of our friends to show support and solidarity.”
The UK government’s demands for cooperation in their poisoning probe are unlikely to be complied with. The Russian Foreign Ministry denied that Moscow had any involvement in the poisoning and has also demanded that the British government hand over samples of the nerve agent used in the attack to Russia for its own examination.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has insisted that the accusations from the British government must be evaluated by proper international authorities under the terms of the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, which prohibits “the development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention, transfer or use of chemical weapons” by signing countries, including Russia.
Check out the link I posted in post#10. Skripal was a Russian spy in the late 90s and early 2000s. He was turned by the Brits (by a Steele friend and during the era Steele was in Brit intel)
The Ruskis found out he was a double agent and arrested him when he was in Russia.
He was tried, convicted and went to prison. He served several years and was released in some sort of spy swap.
He moved to the Uk where he lived openly under his own name for 8 years.
So my point, if the Russians wanted him dead, they had in in prison as a turncoat for years. He could have vanished.
To me that goes against the Teresa May narrative that
the Russians got him for being a turncoat. I think it’s way more likely that Hillary and her loyalists in US/Brit intel agencies did it.
The guy is a traitor. What’s supposed to happen to traitors?
To paraphrase Rodney Dangerfield: Western Europe gets no respect.....nor do paper tigers. The EU has 450 million people vs Russia’s 120 million, 8 times the GDP of Russia,
invest little in their self defense and will do absolutely nothing to defend themselves against their only regional threat without dragging the US into it. I personally think we should charge the EU 5 percent of their collective GDP for use of our nuclear umbrella. That is the only deterrent they have to keeping Russia at bay should Putin decide to get frisky with them.
This book, co-authored by Alexander Litvinenko, the victim of the notorious 2006 London polonium poisoning, attempts to demonstrate that modern Russia’s most fundamental problems do not result from the radical reforms of the liberal period of Yeltsin’s terms as president, but from the open or clandestine resistance offered to these reforms by the Russian special services. It was they who unleashed the first and second Chechen wars, in order to divert Russia away from the path of democracy and towards dictatorship, militarism, and chauvinism.
The authors alleged that the Russian apartment bombings and other September 1999 terrorist acts were committed by the Federal Security Service. Litvinenko and Felshtinsky wrote that the bombings were a false flag operation intended to justify Second Chechen War and bring Vladimir Putin to power.
Originally published in 2002
(223 pages)
http://www.libertypublishinghouse.com/Blowing_up_Russia_E.aspx
________________
“Over the next six years, Litvinenko became an anti-Kremlin journalist, accusing the Russian government of abuses during their battles with Chechen separatists in the 1990s, and the FSB’s alleged 1999 bombing of 300 people in explosions at apartments in Russia that was used to justify its second war against Chechnya.
He also claimed two of the Chechen separatists who took hostages at a theater in Moscow in October 2002 during which 162 people died were working for the FSB.
He also pointed the finger at the FSB for having trained al Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.”
________________
Jan. 21, 2016
“Russian President Vladimir Putin probably approved a plan by Russia’s FSB security service to kill former agent Alexander Litvinenko.
Judge Robert Owen said on Thursday in a lengthy report that he was certain Litvinenko was given tea laced with a fatal dose of polonium-210 at a London hotel in November 2006.
He said there was a “strong probability” that the FSB directed the killing and the operation was “probably approved” by Putin.”
__________________
The European Union has a combined GDP of 17 trillion dollars. This is 12 times greater than the Soviet Union. Hell, even Italy has a higher GDP than Russia. The EEC has a very sophisticated military industrial complex including nuclear weapons. It is time for the EEC to take care of itself.
They have the economic power to crush Russia if they desire. They have a military industrial complex that can outproduce Russia with ease. They can protect themselves easily. We should not withdraw from Europe but sure as hell need to make the EEC pick up a share of defense that is commensurate with their economic might. An EEC fleet the size of our Pacific and Atlantic fleets would get the attention of bad guys in the world. An Air Force the size of ours would be good also. Three million men in arms in Europe would frighten the hell out of potential aggressors.
It is time for the EEC to step up and be ready to fight! Bullies attack the weak, not the strong!
Population numbers are meaningless. The EU has degraded it’s manhood and cannot field anything more than a small constabulary force.
And they let moslems rape their women in the streets and beat their elderly. Russia is the least of their problems.
and by the way, you can look up the formula for this stuff on wiki: made of common ingredients which is why it was developed - to bypass international treaties against chemical warfare agents
Its extreme deadliness actually doesn’t make it an assassination weapon unless you want to risk taking out the assassin and causing other collateral damage too-but I;m sure Porton Down (where VX nerve agent was first developed) and other CW research facilities have been working on novichok scenarios for the past 25 years
This whole thing reads more like someone was involved running a test of smuggling this stuff to see if they could get away with it but ooops
Interestingly the UK has a spy thriller series called STRIKE Back and the Jan 31 episode was about an operation using novichok= what are the odds
Episode 6 Jan 31 2018
“Section 20 track down Maya, a local Muslim woman Lowry radicalised, to a local airport. When she attempts to release the Novichok, Reynolds shoots her. The Novichok is fake however, as Berisovich does not want an attack committed in his country. In the meantime, Yuri finds the team and attempts to kill Reynolds; she shoots him but he escapes. Jensen traces the gas’ radiation background and learns that Markov’s lab is in Pripyat, Ukraine. By the time Section 20 arrives, Berisovich had already called in the FSB to extract Markov and confiscate the Novichok. Yuri resurfaces to kill McAllister and Wyatt. However they turn the tables and strangle him to death. They then manage to engage the FSB and contain the gas. But in the process Reynolds is exposed. Markov works on an antidote but is killed by the Russians before he can complete. McAllister improvises and saves Reynolds, before Novin blows up the lab. Lowry uses the remainder of the gas to kill Berisovich for trying to betray her. She later gets a call from an acquaintance, who reveals that her husband is still alive”.
I posted the above because links to this episode storyline that I found yesterday are disappearing from the web
Symposium: To Kill a Russian Journalist
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | November 17, 2006
The murder of internationally renowned Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya in early October 2006 was yet another troubling sign of Russia’s retreat into its totalitarian past. Today Frontpage Symposium has gathered a distinguished panel of experts to discuss why Anna Politkovskaya was killed and what the tragic loss of her life symbolizes about the direction in which Vladimir Putin’s Russia is heading.
http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=1490
_______________________________________________________
'PUTIN'S RUSSIA' by Anna Politkovskaya:
http://www.amazon.com/PUTINS-RUSSIA-ANNA-POLITKOVSKAYA/dp/1843430509
_______________________________________________________
List of journalists killed in Russia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia#A_list_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia
The dollars and numbers don’t matter. The Europeans are complete pussies in this era, and Russia has no plan to expand west. So as exciting as it would be, there will be no EU/Russo war. Germans are in a race to elect the most socialist they can. Merkel won reelection.
Source, please?!
This is the reason that Douchebag Tillerson is gone.
Putin does what is necessary to advance the interests of the Russian State, and Tillerson condemning Russia for doing what Russia HAS ALWAYS DONE earned him a spot on the unemployment line.
The RUSSIANS just announced development of a hypersonic nuclear cruise missile that renders USELESS American anti-missile technology.
They have no faggots in their military, and will BURY us, WE LET TRAITORS AND DOMESTIC ENEMIES OPERATE UNSCATHED.
Russia SCATHES.
Post 10, read that link. It get you past the paywall of the Telegraph.
“What we’re doing today is giving Russia until midnight tonight to explain how it came to be that Novichok was used on the streets of Wiltshire.
Go ask Hillary and Obama, I sold them a stockpile before the election.
As it stands now, the Brits can say they just cooperated with the proper authorities in the US. If a few of the wrong people sing it could come out that they did the grunt work on their own for their own reasons then used Steele to channel things to people they knew would be more than happy to get it.
Whatever the case, the victim was absolutely someone who could pass along information about British sources and methods which, IMHo, makes him more of a target for the US, British, or Ukrainians, depending on who he worked with alongside Steele way more than for the Russians.
Just revoke all their visas and kick all the Russians out of the country.
Vladimir Putin's media Svengali who was found dead in DC hotel was 'murdered for being an FBI informant'
"Nicknamed the 'Bulldozer', Lesin was one of the key props of the Putin presidency, personally masterminding a wide-ranging media crackdown which has left the vast majority of Russian TV stations and newspapers obedient to the Kremlin."
______________________________________________________________ MAR 2016...
A former aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin found dead in a Washington hotel room was killed by a blunt force trauma to the head, U.S. authorities said Thursday.
Mikhail Lesin, 57, was found dead on the floor of his room in Dupont Circle on November 5.[2015]
Autopsy results show that he died from “blunt-force injuries of the head,” according to a joint statement Thursday from the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department and Office of the Chief Medical Examiner reported by NBC Washington , but the exact manner of death was undetermined.
Also contributing to his death were “blunt-force injuries of the neck, torso, upper extremities and lower extremities,” the statement said.
Russian media originally reported that Lesin, a former government minister, had suffered a heart attack. ...”
The murder of prominent Putin critic Boris Nemstov in a gangland-style killing steps from the Kremlin came just weeks after the dissident told a magazine his mother worried the Russian leader would have him bumped off for his outspokenness.
" 'When will you stop cursing Putin? He'll kill you for that.' She was completely serious," Nemstov told Sobsesdnik earlier this month, according to the Wall Street Journal. The paper added that the former Deputy Prime Minister under Russian president Boris Yeltsin expressed some worry about his safety but not as much as his mother.
-snip-
Nemtsov, 55, was gunned down in a drive-by shooting Friday near midnight as he walked on a bridge near the Kremlin with a female companion.
Yes, weapon grade fentanyl was my first guess
Quite easy to plant paraphanelia and blame the victim for overdosing
The Brits wont release any samples of what they collected to the Russians (who could help assess what lab might have produced it) and wont let them have access to the victims to assess their conditions (they claim the father is a UK citizen but Yulia is clearly Russian)-yet demand the Russians deliver a full report by midnite
If this was novickok why these people arent dead is a puzzler-as isthe rather blasé attitude g the Brits showed in advising the public to just wash their clothes and use baby wipes on furgaces and bag them in plastic and put them in the trash!
pffft
So HTH are the accused Russians supposed to figure out what this is - and who set it up?
BYW this is the same UK lab that assured us the Syrian govt used “sarin” against civilians in 2013-whne we all saw pictures of the White Helmets walking around in sandals
“The Brits wont release any samples of what they collected to the Russians “
And even if they did, how do you trust it?
“”If this was novickok why these people arent dead is a puzzler-as isthe rather blasé attitude g the Brits showed in advising the public to just wash their clothes and use baby wipes on furgaces and bag them in plastic and put them in the trash!”
After the NBC training a grunt gets for how to decon after nerva agents. Laughable.
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