Free Republic

As I walk around Borovsk, two things strike me about this town 60 miles (100km) from Moscow. First, there is almost no sign of the presidential election coming up this weekend. I see few election banners or billboards and no political flyers being handed out. Not surprising, really. The absence of election preparations mirrors the absence of drama surrounding a stage-managed event that will hand Vladimir Putin a fifth term in the Kremlin. The other thing you can't help noticing in Borovsk is the street art. It's everywhere. Much of it has been created by street artist Vladimir Ovchinnikov. All...

A high-ranking Russian law official believed to be the authority behind attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya, who took part in the notorious Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr during the presidential campaign, has been killed in a mysterious helicopter crash. Deputy prosecutor-general Saak Karapetyan - a long-time ally of President Vladimir Putin - died last night when his AS-350 came down in Kostroma region northeast of Moscow during an unauthorized flight. Karapetyan had been in charge of Russian criminal investigations into the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the UK, and the deaths of Putin critic...

A member of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee warned that bio-weapons are being made that use a target's DNA to only kill that person. Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum on Friday, US Rep Jason Crow of Colorado warned Americans to not be so cavalier about sharing their DNA with private companies due to the coming of the new type of weapon Earlier this week the Washington Examiner reported on just how easy it could be for privately-owned databases to be used to develop bioweapons such as the ones touted by Crow. The publication explained how DNA belonging to a...

The Czech Republic is expelling 18 employees of the Russian embassy in Prague, who were allegedly "identified as members of the Russian secret services", Foreign Minister Jan Hamacek said at news conference. According to local media reports, the move comes in response to evidence obtained by the country's security services which suggests Russia's involvement in two ammunition depot explosions in 2014 in the Czech Republic which killed two people. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Andrej Babis said in the same news conference that "there is well-grounded suspicion about the involvement of officers of the Russian intelligence service GRU, unit 29155, in the...

Last week, the White House announced that it would stop approving new permits to import Russian-made firearms as well as ammunition. The ban, which is part of a new round of sanctions against the Russian government over its alleged poisoning and imprisoning of dissident Aleksey Navalny, is set to go into effect on Sept. 7, 2021. “Pursuant to the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991 (the CBW Act), the United States will impose a second round of sanctions on the Russian Federation over its use of a ‘Novichok’ nerve agent in the August 2020 poisoning...

When Soviet scientists developed a new group of nerve agents in the 1970s and ’80s, they called it Novichok, or “newcomer.” The lethal cocktail acts as a cholinesterase inhibitor, blocking an enzyme the nervous system needs to function. The poison disrupts communication between nerves and muscles. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons added Novichock to a list of banned chemical toxins in 2019 after Britain accused Russian agents of using it to poison a former Russian operative and his daughter a year earlier. The Kremlin denied the allegations. Berlin’s Charité hospital said in late August that another Russian...

Dr Busby says a few words about the Russian Nerve Agent issue. He speaks as an expert in this area. Chris worked for several years at the famous Wellcome Research laboratories in Beckenham, London as a Senior Scientist in the Department of Physical Chemistry. His job, at the basic level, was to help determine the structure and origin of pharmaceutical compounds. So, he is an expert in this area. He also carried out similar work at Queen Mary College London for his first PhD and synthesised complex organic chemicals. From that, he relates that the synthesis of a specific small...

British authorities on Wednesday indicted two men for the March chemical-weapons attack on a former Russian double agent on British soil. The new details add to the evidence that Vladimir Putin’s regime is responsible, but its reckless methods are the real stunner. Police and prosecutors allege the men they identify as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov—almost certainly pseudonyms—arrived at London’s Gatwick airport on Friday, March 2, smuggling the weapons-grade nerve agent Novichok in a small counterfeit perfume bottle. They ferried the chemical on suburban trains and the Tube through central London to a hotel, where nonfatal quantities of Novichok were...

SNIP “On Wednesday ... a small bottle was recovered during searches of Charlie Rowley’s house in Amesbury,” police said in a statement. “Scientists have now confirmed to us that the substance contained within the bottle is Novichok.” SNIP ETC...

A deadly nerve agent linked to the poisoning of four people in southern England could have been carried inside a lipstick tube-like container before being planted, a Russian scientist who developed the substance told Euronews. “The substance is very stable. It can be washed away by rain, it can evaporate under the sun. But it won’t decompose." Vladimir Uglev Scientist Vladimir Uglev, 72, took a leading role in developing A-234, a strain of the Novichok family of agents believed to have been used to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury earlier this year. Like...

LONDON — A middle-aged British woman, who somehow came into contact with the Soviet-era nerve agent known as Novichok, died Sunday evening at a hospital in south England where she was being treated for exposure to the military-grade chemical weapon. Prime Minister Theresa May said she was “appalled and shocked by the death,” and announced that it is now being investigated as a murder. Dawn Sturgess, 44, was one of five people who became seriously ill after being exposed to the nerve agent in the Salisbury area. ... Sturgess lived in a supported-living facility that helps residents struggling with alcohol...

A woman who was exposed to a military-grade nerve agent in the United Kingdom last month has died, authorities said Sunday. London's Metropolitan Police Department identified the woman as 44-year-old Dawn Sturgess of Durrington. Authorities have launched a murder inquiry into her death, police said. A 45-year-old man who was also exposed to the nerve agent Novichok remains hospitalized in critical condition, police said. "This terrible news has only served to strengthen our resolve to identify and bring to justice the person or persons responsible for what I can only describe as an outrageous, reckless and barbaric act," Neil Basu,...

"It is now time that the Russian state comes forward and explains exactly what has gone on" British Home Secretary Sajid Javid 7/5/2018 After chairing a meeeting of the COBRA committee on national security matters today the British Home Secretary Sajid Javid, said to be a leading candidate to be the UK's next Prime Minister, took aim at Russia in connection with the latest incident that caused a British couple to become critically ill when he spoke in the House of Commons. Javid claimed that Russia was using the UK as a "poison dumping ground". A spokesman for the Russian...

A man and woman found unconscious in Wiltshire were exposed to Novichok - the same nerve agent that poisoned ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal, police say. The couple, believed to be Charlie Rowley, 45, and Dawn Sturgess, 44, fell ill at a house in Amesbury on Saturday and remain in a critical condition. Police say no one else has presented with the same symptoms. There was "nothing in their background" to suggest the pair were targeted, the Met Police said. Home Secretary Sajid Javid will chair a meeting of the government's emergency Cobra committee later to discuss the developments

"A man and a woman found unconscious in Wiltshire were poisoned by Novichok-the same nerve agent that poisoned ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal, police say" BBC News story published at around 6pm Eastern-2300 British Summer Time 7/4/2018 Last Saturday in Amesbury, England Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess became ill and went unconscious. Soon workers in hazmat suits were in the area. At first police thought it might be a drug related incident. First media reports appeared this morning with the words "mysterious substance" attached to what caused the pair to go unconscious. But late tonight in the UK "Novichok" was identified...

A man and a woman found unconscious in Wiltshire were poisoned by Novichok, the same nerve agent as 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. Police say no one else has presented the same symptoms. There was "nothing in their background" to suggest the pair were targeted, the Met Police said.... Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu said it could not be confirmed whether the nerve agent came from the same batch that Mr. Skripal, and his...

The revelation of Porton Down’s CEO shows that someone has been lying about the Skripal case, and that someone is Boris Johnson. The Chief of the Defense Science and Tech lab at Porton Down, the lab examining the chemical agent that the Skripals were poisoned with, came out with the news, in an interview with SkyNews, that they have no idea where the poison originated: “We were able to identify it as Novichok, to identify that it was military-grade nerve agent.” “We have not identified the precise source, but we have provided the scientific info to government who have then...

Just came across an intriguing theory about Sergei Skripal, the former Soviet/Russian military intelligence agent who spied for Britain, and, along with his daughter Yulia, was nearly killed this spring by a dose of the nerve agent Novichok in the town of Salisbury, England, where they live. In a March 21 interview on the John Batchelor Show, Gregory R. Copley, editor and publisher of Defense & Foreign Affairs, posited that Sergei Skripal is the unnamed Russian intelligence source in the Steele dossier. Copley further explained (or tried to explain) to Batchelor (who kept cutting him off): “The people who wished...

Fresh turf marks spot where poisoned Russian spy and his daughter were found slumped on a bench as sealed off Salisbury businesses reopen for first time since nerve agent attack Thoroughfare near bench has been closed since nerve agent attack 11 weeks ago Sergei Skripal and daughter Yulia were found unconscious on bench on March 4 Businesses are preparing to reopen today as Salisbury makes steps in recovery Shoppers were avoiding area over health and safety fears, harming businessesFresh turf marks the spot where former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found slumped on a bench after...

Germany's intelligence service BND had in the 1990s obtained from a Russian informer a sample of the poison used against ex-double agent Sergei Skripal, German media reported Thursday, drawing a link to Moscow as the origin of the toxin. Britain has accused Russia of carrying out the nerve agent attack against Skripal and his daughter Yulia in March, but Moscow has denied the claims and argued that the country never had any programmes to develop the chemical weapon, known as Novichok. But German newspapers Sueddeutsche Zeitung and Die Zeit as well as regional public broadcasters NDR and WDR said their...