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.
[“What we’re doing today is giving Russia until midnight tonight to explain”]
O.K......
For all Putin’s bravado, his country is still Upper Volta with missiles. Shame, they could have been on the Alpha list. Must be something in the vodka.
Wow! If Trump had said this liberal heads would be esploding all across the country.
The UK has criminalized conservative speech. F them.
Screw the UK. I hope we kick out all their tourists in America for having inappropriate opinions.
The UK can't control the muzzies - what the hell do they think they'll do against Putin?
Oh yes. You should see the fruitcakes at Yahoo. They have to be Huff Po addicts. Though a few conservatives tell them where to get off.
It does not matter what the President does - they make everything bad. They should all go scream at the sky.
Were you and I the only ones to think the Islamic state of Great Britain is mad at Putin for not bowing down. ISGB.
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/03/spy-posions-spy-and-the-anti-trump-campaign.html
The Russian ex-spy was a close associate of Christopher Steele, and was likely the “source” of the “dossier”. So who’s more likely to put a hit on him? The Russians -after- he was arrested in Russia, imprisoned for treason, served his sentence and was released and living openly under his own name, in the UK for 8 years? OR, the Brennan/COmey intel community/Hillary crew who knows he was the author of the fake dossier and doesn’t want him talking to anyone? (especially since he is a double agent, so the Clinton/Steele crew trusting him to stay loyal is a non-starter)
This is pure deep state crap.
They will wring their hands and ultimately do nothing of consequence. Meanwhile Russia is turning into the world’s largest and most dangerous rogue state, largely thanks to Obama and Clinton.
There is no James Bond nor the will to use one even if there was.
If you want James Bond, go to the library - Neil Burnside. Sandbaggers was a great series.
“”On Monday, Prime Minister Theresa May spoke to the British Parliament to publicly demand an explanation from the Russian government for the poisoning”
He was part of the dossier scam, and was an immediate risk to the treasonous US/Brit intel community. And May is a bird-of-a-feather globalist tool.
The Russians had no motive, the Comey/Brennan/deep state/Hillary crowd had tons of motive. Believe nothing of what they tell us and about half of what you see.
The Deep State wants a US/Russian war.
Their Plan A didn’t work (spark a clash in Syria), so they’re leveraging the “special relationship” between the UK and US.
Get the UK and Russia into a war and use that to compel the US to go to war alongside the UK.
If Russia really wanted to get one person, they wouldn’t have done it in a way that caused a mass casualty event.
Q is right - these people are EVIL.
Go Trump - MAGA
Go Melania aka Lady MAGA
The covfefe is against the wall
The covfefe is against the wall
Kek has a long moustache
Kek has a long moustache
Q is real
Let the UK and Russia have it out.
We’ve bailed the British out plenty.
And nothing is funnier that Brits, fulminating about Russia, needing to get out of Crimea. It’s like I’m back in 1853.
Really, it’s funny watching Brits fulminate about anything. Hell, they are terrified of a cute little 25 year old American girl and locked her up for three days! LMAO
The Russians had no motive, the Comey/Brennan/deep state/Hillary crowd had tons of motive. Believe nothing of what they tell us and about half of what you see.
Makes as much sense as Russia deciding to assassinate this guy and his daughter after eight years.
. . . and try to make it look like someone else did it. Now that makes some sense. Very interesting. So Pooty needs to tell the Brits that Don Hillary and her henchmen did it.
A real message would be a tragic traffic accident in London that “accidentally” takes out a high Russian Official. Neither side wants to start playing tit for tat in that game.
MI also knows of Russian spies living in the UK. Perhaps a few of these should die.
Good find.
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