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.
You have a problem with that?
These people (Russians, Iranians, Chinese, etc.) are going to eat our lunch.
Bad actors have infiltrated ALL positions in DC -— APPARATCHIKS in the “Federal Service” and the “Press”
Easy to do when no fear of CONSEQUENCES.
Working every day to promote DECAY at all levels of American society and military.
The Atlantic and Pacific will NOT save us when they pull the trigger.
Putin keeps DOMESTIC ENEMIES in line in Russia, no matter where they are.
This may be the start of a similar policy here.
I think they’ve done that before. Probably they’ll expel the ambassador.
I’d be accused of being a Putinista if I said I believed the Russians over Theresa May, wouldn’t I?
Fact is you can’t have an honest investigation unless they are involved and confronted with evidence, not just accusations
Monitored yes- -but involved
:-)
And yet UK’s huge pedophile ring with many of the children killed has been exposed. How about giving UK and ultimatum regarding its abuse, sometimes with fatal consequences, of its children.
“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”
Did not know that.
And I’m kinda mad at the USMC. All that time training in a M-17 mask, in a charcoal suit, etc. And all along, all I needed was a bandana like the white helmets.
“Fact is you can’t have an honest investigation unless they are involved and confronted with evidence, not just accusations”
And I think it’s pretty obvious why that won’t happen.
The UK has criminalized conservative speech. F them.
—
The UK has no military to speak of. Where’s the beef?
Don't forget the HMS Victory. It carries 104 cannon, and is probably the most powerful surface ship currently in the Royal Navy.
I am sure Putin kept Kremlin hands clean and used expatriate Russian double agents living in the U.K. and them employing third parties to actually execute the deed and leaving no direct trail to any individuals. The classified Kremlin answer to 10 Downing street will be that mobsters can get the stuff and the poisoning was likely a “mob hit”. Unofficially that will be said with tongue and cheek as the “mob” was Russian mobsters paid by Russia.
I was wondering how that would fit together. Thanks for posting it!
Two totalitarian countries. Who to side with? Putin has been a better enemy to Trump than May has been an ally. And her Parliament has been especially rude, so I say screw you UK. Your on your own.
Damn right. At least Putin doesn’t haul private citizens to jail for condemning Islam.
Except we know the UK interfered in the US via Steele. Still nothing on Putin.
I hate Putin, but I would sit down for lunch with him if it was choice between him and America hating May.
At this point there is arguably less freedom in the UK than Russia - so if Russia gave the UK a bloody nose to put them in their place, I wouldn’t be all that bothered.
Huge blowback on that from the Western press. I'm thinking maybe it was the translator. Putin also mentioned dual passport holders or dual citizens and could have been referring to Israel which has accepted a lot of Russian immigrants, not so much US Israeli making aliyah to Israel; they seem to like it too well here.
Putin governed at one time jointly with Medvedev who is Jewish. And many oligarchs he didn't imprison are Jewish. Also I'm guessing many of the Israeli military are Jewish Russian immigrants who are required to serve.
Or he could have been referring to dual Israeli citizens in the US. Somebody else suggested the Hillary-Steele angle.
Finally I'm not too sure how much control Russia has over their chemical stockpiles (and the ease of manufacturing them from easily-available materials as suggested by another poster). I'm thinking of the suitcase nukes although the situation was a little different then. And we don't seem to worry about the missing nukes any more and assume they haven't been maintained. Anything is possible.
It seems like a rogue state or individual would be a little harder to pin it on. I don't know what the two women used to assasinate Kim Jong Un's was it half-brother at the airport Jakarta. BBC says it was a VX nerve agents. Sounds like exactly the same stuff or same class. I would doubt Russia would give NK nerve agents, but you never know.
Finally the devious business of plausible deniability or degrees of separation.
Thanks!
Read it. Sorry no proof of connection to Steele, and from a source I never heard of before. The article says there is no proof, and Steele (predictably) denies it. Color me very skeptical.
If we get the signed contract where Steele paid him to do it, we’ll let you know. This was the “Russian connection” that gave him the dossier.
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