Posted on 08/08/2018 1:34:39 PM PDT by McGruff
The Trump administration is hitting Russia with new sanctions punishing President Vladimir Putin's government for using a chemical weapon against an ex-spy in Britain, U.S. officials told NBC News Wednesday.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo signed off on a determination that Russia violated international law by poisoning the former spy, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter in March, officials said, a decision that was announced Wednesday afternoon by State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert.
Although the U.S. joined European countries in publicly blaming Moscow within days of the attack, the Trump administration had never issued the formal determination that triggers automatic sanctions under a decades-old U.S. law on chemical weapons.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
And after falling sick from contact with the deadliest nerve agent known to man, they have made a full recovery.
It's not the deadliest nerve agent known to man.
And you don't want it to work instantly, that would make it difficult for the person who planted it to make their escape.
An example would be the Ricin attacks made by Soviet bloc agents during the Cold War.
Considering that Russia isn’t proven to have been involved, this strongly suggests that the NeoCons and warmongers are directing our foreign policy, which is extremely discouraging.
China says thank you very much for pushing Russia closer & closer to us. Combined, their military power exceeds & will exceed ours.
This is sheer stupidity & not in American interests.
Well, the reports did say that Novichok is 5 to 10 times stronger than VX, which is what the North Koreans used on Kim’s half brother, at the Malaysian airport. He died soon after.
Haven’t seen any reports that Novichok induces a delayed reaction. Do you have any?
There are now antidotes for Novichok and 3/4 of the Brit victims this year survived. There are nerve agents out there that have no antidotes. Doesn't mean they make a complete recovery either.
Havent seen any reports that Novichok induces a delayed reaction. Do you have any?
The Russian labs certainly would develop a version with a delayed onset so their intelligence agents can get away. It's what they've done for decades.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison_laboratory_of_the_Soviet_secret_services
Soviets had plenty of political undesirables for guinea pigs.
Another question: If the Russians were the only ones to possess the Novichok poison, how could a country like Great Britain develop an antidote for it? On what would they test out the antidote?
Rumor is the Germans got a sample in the 90's.
Don't forget that when the Iron Curtain fell, there was a 2nd 'Freeing of the Serfs' and chemists that worked on programs like that headed West.
I think you just let the cat out of the bag.
Uh, either it's an elaborate conspiracy theory or the Russians tried to take out a rogue agent very publicly to set an example and failed.
It seems similar to the radioactive Polonium poisoning of a dissident Russian, or the toxic chemical poisoning of a Ukranian leader. It seems like what they do, set an ugly example to scare others.
And lets not forget it happened in Britain....where is this Steele guy from?????
There’s one big problem with the frequent speculation that this might have been the work of British Intelligence. While I’ve no doubt that MI5 etc are as capable of the dirtiest tricks as any other spy agency if they so choose, I don’t believe that they would do so in such a way that large numbers of uninvolved British civilians would be put at serious risk, when there are plenty of other methods which would have hit the Skripals only. The three other casualties (one fatal), and the potential for many more, show that whoever did this had no concern whatever for the collateral.
hmmmm .MAYBE Steele is the Poisoner!!
Byron York was just on Hugh Hewitt’s show and said that Steele is good friends with some “oligarch” very close to Putin!! hmmmmmmm
A response from the other side:
Washington has not provided any facts or evidence to prove Moscows involvement in the Skripal incident, the Russian embassy in the US has said. On August 8, 2018, our deputy chief of mission was informed in the State Department of new draconian sanctions against Russia for far-fetched accusations of using the Novichok nerve agent against a UK citizen, S. Skripal, and his daughter, it said. We grew accustomed to not hearing any facts or evidence, the statement added.
The US side refused to answer our follow-up questions, claiming that the information is classified, the embassy said. We were told that the US has enough intel to conclude that Russia is to blame, the Russian diplomats said. The US State Department said earlier that Washington was imposing new sanctions on Russia over its alleged involvement in the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in the British city of Salisbury, TASS reports.
Meanwhile the Soviet Union broke up and the CW scientists sold their expertise and stocks of agent from the labs to make money _ novichok was available for a price and was sold to multiple buyers including Latvian mafia who used it to assassinate one of Putins business associates - per a scientist who had stocks of the stuff and sold it
The Russian inventor of novichok now lives in Princeton New Jersey and works for the US ( cw research lab)
Meanwhile various labs made their own copies of Novichok
Ukraine, Kazakhstan ( where the US seized their CW stocks), Czechoslovakia, Iran, and Porton Down among others
Derp state would care if Skripal was indeed working for Orbis as one of Christopher Steeles assets
Skripal was not a jolly old retired widower - he was still taking assignments and traveling to meet intel agents in Czechoslovakia and Estonia ( a country where Steele, MI6 agent handler Pablo Miller, and Skripal all connected) - Estonian intel agents source of some of Steeles dossier fodder)
Open source says he went to probably UK directed assignment in Estonia in spring 2016 - and returned just weeks before Steele passed off his dossier. Corn- Isikoff book makes strong circumstantial case that Skripal could be the u/ i speciall messenger Steele used to get reports out of Russia
Given Skripals double agent past, hard to say which side he was working for. Maybe both. Whoever wanted him dead failed. Maybe.
The theory stated was that this man was Steeles source, killed to keep him from talking about how it was all made up.
Ping
Lol. Liberals are not stupid.
They want to convince russophobe nuts that it’s their incessant screams that force Trump to oppose Russia.
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