Novichok In Salisbury: Secret Agents & Nerve Agents In Britain

[Mythopoeika]

I'm trying and failing to write something witty about us discussing on here the possibility of a perfume bottle and then lo and behold the news saying it was.

They wouldn't be making up this crazy narrative as they go along, using ideas gleaned from discussion forums. No, that would be ridiculous.

I have long observed that the news outlets (and sometimes the government) take note of comments on FTMB and make up stuff based on our wild speculations.
Or that's how it seems sometimes.

 

[Eponastill]

(just to rabbit on a bit more, sorry) - Before the attack, no-one's looking for you. You're going to look odd spraying something on a door handle* whether it's from a perfume bottle or a Brasso bottle** or whatever it is. So best not be spotted and just use the thing that you're least likely to contaminate yourself with. Anything that atomises a deadly nerve poison might not be your best choice, with the possibility of tiny particles floating back at you If you are spotted looking suspicious, your face would be more important than what was in your hand.

Then after, what do you care what it looks like - either hang on to it or dump it as soon as possible, because the police are going to discover it was novichock sooner or later regardless of if they find the bottle.

I don't even know what I'm concluding from all this. That the Russians use rather amateurish assassins? Or that it wasn't really the Russians? Or that the whole Round 2 is to convince us it was the Russians because of Secret Machinations? Saying it's a perfume bottle cranks up the local paranoia because Anything Could Be Contaminated, any everyday article. If it was announced it was a syringe or a weird vial then 'normal people' wouldn't generally pick such things up anyway and panic would recede, but if another contamination happened there'd be severe awkwardness... oh I don't know, I'm truly confused.

*if this is even true

*keep your eye on the papers, SZ and Mythopoeika. Brasso can, perfect disguise.

 

[Ermintruder]

I felt that the robust statements made today by President Trump (towards President Putin) lambasting the entire Russian state about their disgraceful behaviour in using nerve agents against the USA's closest NATO ally to have been particularly...non-existent.

This whole Novichok nonsense is ludicrous.

The apparent total non-mention of it by Trump moves this whole farce into a total joke.

Allegedly influencing elections is one piece of theatre. This is something altogether else.

Surely deploying a military-grade chemical nerve agent (entertainingly-enough, one which appears to break every single tactical characteristic of all other nerve agents) within the sovereign territory of the specialist of special nations (ie the UK) deserves a few syllables of apparent comment and criticism from the World's Chief Of Police??

 

[Roland Deschain]

(just to rabbit on a bit more, sorry) - Before the attack, no-one's looking for you. You're going to look odd spraying something on a door handle* whether it's from a perfume bottle or a Brasso bottle** or whatever it is. So best not be spotted and just use the thing that you're least likely to contaminate yourself with. Anything that atomises a deadly nerve poison might not be your best choice, with the possibility of tiny particles floating back at you If you are spotted looking suspicious, your face would be more important than what was in your hand.

Unless of course you have already taken an antidote or other precautions.

Then after, what do you care what it looks like - either hang on to it or dump it as soon as possible, because the police are going to discover it was novichock sooner or later regardless of if they find the bottle.

Isn't that what they did? Strolled off and then when out of view of any possible CCTV or dash cameras lobbed it under a bush.

I don't even know what I'm concluding from all this. That the Russians use rather amateurish assassins? Or that it wasn't really the Russians? Or that the whole Round 2 is to convince us it was the Russians because of Secret Machinations? Saying it's a perfume bottle cranks up the local paranoia because Anything Could Be Contaminated, any everyday article. If it was announced it was a syringe or a weird vial then 'normal people' wouldn't generally pick such things up anyway and panic would recede, and if another contamination happened there'd be severe awkwardness... oh I don't know, I'm truly confused.

I'm not sure how more professional you need be when tasked with contaminating a door handle. Approach door, spray, walk away, dump bottle and not get caught. Seems that's been achieved. Doesn't even have to be a Russian agent - look at the assasinantion of Kim Jong-nam

 

[Eponastill]

So your point is that nothing seems weird and it's all perfectly reasonable. Perhaps you are right.

I still don't see why you'd carry the bottle so far to just sling it randomly. Plus if you're on CCTV in the area, then you're on it, so a scarf over your face would seem more useful than disguising the poison as perfume (which would be in a bag/pocket anyway). Plus, can you suggest why a potent and fatal nerve agent, deliberately targeted, took so many hours to take effect and then actually failed to kill either of the people targeted. I don't think there is a quick antidote or the Skripals and the other couple would have had it administered. Still, if you carry some baby wipes with you...

 

[Ermintruder]

I felt that the robust statements made today by President Trump (towards President Putin) lambasting the entire Russian state about their disgraceful behaviour in using nerve agents against the USA's closest NATO ally to have been particularly...non-existent

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...es-uk-of-ungrounded-accusations-over-novichok

Asked in a Fox News interview about the British government’s assertion that Moscow was behind the novichok attack on the former spy Sergei Skripal, Putin said London had not provided any evidence to back up the claim.

“We would like to get documentary evidence but nobody gives it to us,” Putin, speaking through a translator, told the US network after a summit with Donald Trump in Finland.

"after a summit with Donald Trump in Finland"

Come on FTMB, this is utter madness. If we play the game of the purported reality we live in, how can this actually be real?

Are we seriously saying that Trump never even emitted a single syllable of criticism towards Putin regarding this? Let's pretend it did really happen, the Novichok opera, just as they're reporting it. This cannot be an everyday occurence. No drive-by shooting, or casual car collision.

Surely this merited public presidential approbation from Trump, to the Russian President & state? Is he (Trump) a Manchurian Candidate cartoon clone?

Are we now saying that even if the Admiral Kuznetsov was to start gently-bombarding the Channel Islands, the Trump would still take tea with the Putin?

Well, Trump did say early-on in his presidency that he thought NATO to be an irrelevancy- I am most-intrigued that the script-writers are letting this turn from a three-act play to a two-act farce.

 

[Eponastill]

Perhaps the fact that it hasn't caused uproar here is a terrible indication of what we now expect of Trump. Not what we think's acceptable or reasonable. But what mad, irrational, unconventional, disruptive behaviour we expect. Literally nothing he did or said would surprise me now.

 

[Min Bannister]

So your point is that nothing seems weird and it's all perfectly reasonable. Perhaps you are right.

I still don't see why you'd carry the bottle so far to just sling it randomly. Plus if you're on CCTV in the area, then you're on it, so a scarf over your face would seem more useful than disguising the poison as perfume (which would be in a bag/pocket anyway). Plus, can you suggest why a potent and fatal nerve agent, deliberately targeted, took so many hours to take effect and then actually failed to kill either of the people targeted. I don't think there is a quick antidote or the Skripals and the other couple would have had it administered. Still, if you carry some baby wipes with you...

I looked back at the info from the man who invented A-234 (it's Sunday name), posted by @XBergMann here. He suggests that one than one batch was prepared and left or buried in places in order for the assassin to pick up. This sounds plausible to me. Someone else, maybe even more than one brings the chemical in, someone else serves it on the Skripals. So the bottle in the park may not have been the one used.

Mr Skripal may have been sprayed with it personally in the street or at the market in Salisbury where it wouldn't really be remarked upon (try this perfume tsst) and got the door handle contaminated that way.

According to this Indie article:-

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ed-amesbury-wiltshire-salisbury-a8432291.html

It works in stages and apparently the effect CAN be reversed if you get to it in time.

“They react in stages with the nervous system – if an antidote can be administered within the first 24-48 hours, much of the effects can be reversed. However, the longer the victim goes before the antidote is administered, the agent’s effect on the nervous system ‘ages’ and the effects become irreversible.

I don't think this isn't weird by the way. Just that it doesn't seem that unreasonable to me. :sherlock:

 

[Xanatic*]

I really don't get why Trump is expected to bring this up when meeting with Putin. I doubt he sees why he should be running Britain's errands.

 

[Yithian]

I really don't get why Trump is expected to bring this up when meeting with Putin. I doubt he sees why he should be running Britain's errands.

Article 5, NATO Constitition.

The same reason we were in Afrganistan.

 

[Xanatic*]

I meant more in a "Knowing what Trump is like" kind of way.

 

[Yithian]

I meant more in a "Knowing what Trump is like" kind of way.

Ah, I see: why anybody expected him to do it.

I thought he might, possibly--but I have no belief that he even understands his international obligations, let alone feels any moral compunction to meet them.

The man runs on animal spirits. One day he might think the British have been awfully hard done by, the next he might be wondering whether the Russians are perhaps onto something with this whole dispatching enemies thing.

 

[Ermintruder]

I meant more in a "Knowing what Trump is like"

I believe my re-interpretation of your statement is a much-more valid angle.

And it is partially-encapsulated in the first part of @Yithian 's terrifying preciş:

I have no belief that he even understands his international obligations

My omni-skepticism regarding most (all?) forms of governance and media reporting is stretched beyond all limits of reference by The Trump.

If he does still have handlers, then he is being deliberately 'run rogue'. Those in Dark-Filled Rooms, who in practical reality pull the strings across eternity, are operating him as an Old Testament ouvre counterpoint to the New Testament candy-floss shadow that was Barry Osama Obama. Nobody in the position of POTUS could appear to be as uncontrolled as The Trump, unless they were really being highly-controlled from behind.

Politics, faux war and espionage are now all run as extreme public distractions, in our contemporary hyperconnected world.

We all think we know and see the truths around us: from the group perspective of informed consumers of 24hr news (and spy fiction). Not for us the elementary slack-jawed public miscomprehensions of the Watergate break-ins, or of Markov's umbrella. We need a much-more heady brew of improbable extreme scenarios, and outré players...all so extreme, that it all must be true.

Nothing in this Novachok nonsense seems real- least of all the mechanics of the original 'assassination'. The lack of targetted inquisition regarding this incident from The Trump to Putin is just the icing on a very-shaky and improbable layer-cake.

Consider an alternative scenario: say that this confection had been spun-out in the CONUS, two defectors abortively 'terminated' via allegedly-Russian military nerve agent chemical warfare, followed by the collateral killing of a US citizen on the US (NATO-protected) homeland.

Under what circumstances would a meeting between a UK Prime Minister and the Russian President NOT make massive high-profile reference to this sort of 'incident'?

(Oddly-enough, I find myself able to answer my own question, from my own hyperbolic alternative world scenario...such a searching question would conceivably gone equally-unasked, in the real-world style of Trump, if the UK Prime Minister in post had been Boris Johnson (another ultrabot who has been placed into pause-mode, for now). But I'm jumping ahead way too many pages in the script, perhaps...)

 

[Schrodinger's Zebra]

Can I just ask... and hopefully this hasn't already been covered otherwise I'll look a bit daft... but I've just seen this:

https://news.sky.com/story/amesbury...ss-suffered-damage-to-hands-and-face-11440565

(Yes, I know, Sky News is about as believable as a chocolate fireguard) but... if this is true (well, at least as true as anything else in this Novichock debacle)...

... then...

Has Julia Skripal shed any light on how she and her father were poisoned? I.e. can she corroborate this perfume bottle excuse explanation? Because surely... we're not talking about two separate different ways of the poisoning taking place?

Yet I haven't heard one single thing on the news regarding the Skripals version of events.

Of course I'm speaking as someone with little knowledge of how secret-squirrel-russian-porton-down poisoning is supposed to take place, but I imagined that, if I'm to believe the official narrative, the two latest victims should have 'accidentally come across' the same method of delivery as the Skripals?

 

[Mythopoeika]

Can I just ask... and hopefully this hasn't already been covered otherwise I'll look a bit daft... but I've just seen this:

https://news.sky.com/story/amesbury...ss-suffered-damage-to-hands-and-face-11440565

(Yes, I know, Sky News is about as believable as a chocolate fireguard) but... if this is true (well, at least as true as anything else in this Novichock debacle)...

... then...

Has Julia Skripal shed any light on how she and her father were poisoned? I.e. can she corroborate this perfume bottle excuse explanation? Because surely... we're not talking about two separate different ways of the poisoning taking place?

Yet I haven't heard one single thing on the news regarding the Skripals version of events.

Of course I'm speaking as someone with little knowledge of how secret-squirrel-russian-porton-down poisoning is supposed to take place, but I imagined that, if I'm to believe the official narrative, the two latest victims should have 'accidentally come across' the same method of delivery as the Skripals?

There is also no mention in that article of how Charlie Rowley obtained the perfume bottle.
Did he find it lying on the ground?
Did he pickpocket a Russian spy?
Is he a Russian spy?

 

[Min Bannister]

Of course I'm speaking as someone with little knowledge of how secret-squirrel-russian-porton-down poisoning is supposed to take place, but I imagined that, if I'm to believe the official narrative, the two latest victims should have 'accidentally come across' the same method of delivery as the Skripals?

Most of my knowledge of secret squirrel stuff comes from watching James Bond and Mission Impossible and such like but I am pretty sure that, frustratingly, a lot of the detail just can't be put into the public domain. Much as we would like it to.

 

[Cavynaut]

Probably the most inept political assassination in recent history. I reckon the Russians must have outsourced the gig to G4S.

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

Suspects identified and "several Russians involved".


https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...skripal-novichok-salisbury-poisoning-suspects

 

[Yithian]

I've only really followed the earlier part of the reporting of this case. Has it been explained why anybody would pick up a discarded perfume bottle?

I'd just assume it had piss in it.

 

[Eponastill]

Ah because they were at the fringes of polite society, Dawn Sturgess lived in a hostel and took drugs. The story is that drug addicts are more likely to pick up perfume bottles a month after the initial incident than children, dogs, people who are paid to pick up litter in parks etc.

"It is understood Sturgess was exposed to at least 10 times the amount of novichok the Skripals came into contact with, PA said." which doesn't say much for the assassin's technique. You'd think if so much was left over you'd be required to bring it back to your masters (or you might be tempted to keep it to polish off unauthorised targets, novichock on the loose). Also you'd think one might drop dead straight away if you squirted a normal perfume amount on your wrist.

maybe novichock smells lovely. or maybe it was mixed with perfume, that must be it. Maybe the culprit works in the perfume section of a department store. It'd have to be a unisex perfume.

Also that article says "police 'identify' suspects" which is an odd way of putting it?!

 

[James_H]

maybe novichock smells lovely

According to the witness, it smelled of ammonia

The story is that drug addicts are more likely to pick up perfume bottles a month after the initial incident than children, dogs, people who are paid to pick up litter in parks etc.

Confusingly, the Sun says 'It's believed he and Dawn had picked up the nerve agent vial from a park drug den' - what is a 'park drug den'? Is it indoor or outdoor?

 

[CuriousIdent]

There's still this nagging doubt at the back of my mind, over this whole thing. If this was a State sponsored killing it was done in a really haphazard way, with the nerve agent disposed of pretty poorly.

As far as we (the public) can discern there has been no credible evidence to provably show that this was Russian agents, let alone ordered directly by Putin. One could argue that we naturally have a gut feeling that it was, but proof simply doesn't exist.

All we have is the word of a former Home Secretary with a now long proven track record of lying and making shit up constantly in order to get what he wants. So frankly, that's about as unreliable a testimony as you can get!

What if this is just some random nutter who got their hands on a nerve agent, and is using it for their own ends? Can we really rule that out?

 

[kamalktk]

The lack of targetted inquisition regarding this incident from The Trump to Putin is just the icing on a very-shaky and improbable layer-cake.

If you havnt been paying attention to the other thread, Trump is congenitally incapable of saying Russia does anything bad for some reason.

 

[Eponastill]

(In response to James H's post)
If there's a place in the park where drug addicts like to congregate, one would only imagine that the park authorities (the council) would be well aware of its existence and keep it doubly tidy, free of needles and so on. It being a public park and everything. Meaning the bottle would have been litter picked well before Dawn or her partner found it. Besides if it had been there all that time in the alleged "drug den" then someone else would have touched it long before. Piff I say. The sun are just making it up (probably)

And another thing
If you found a perfume bottle, what would be the first thing you'd do (if you were the sort of person to pick up random perfume bottles, let's assume that much) - you'd spray it on yourself straight away wouldn't you? Instantly. Would you pop it in your bag thinking 'ah yes I'll wait until I get home tonight to see what this smells like'. Nah I don't think so. I really don't.

 

[McAvennie]

Suspects identified and "several Russians involved".


https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...skripal-novichok-salisbury-poisoning-suspects

Beautifully vague as always…

"We know who it was, they were Russians, we saw them on CCTV and we know some Russians came into the country. So, Russians! It was them! Like we said… And they did it next to Porton Down to make it look like it came from Porton Down and wasn't really Russia at all. Crafty Russians. So to sum up, it was the Russians, like we told you. Russians. You don't need any further details or solid information on this topic. No questions. Just remember - it was the Russians!"

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

Beautifully vague as always…

"We know who it was, they were Russians, we saw them on CCTV and we know some Russians came into the country. So, Russians! It was them! Like we said… And they did it next to Porton Down to make it look like it came from Porton Down and wasn't really Russia at all. Crafty Russians. So to sum up, it was the Russians, like we told you. Russians. You don't need any further details or solid information on this topic. No questions. Just remember - it was the Russians!"

Do you drink a lot of coffee?

 

[AlchoPwn]

Beautifully vague as always…
"We know who it was, they were Russians, we saw them on CCTV and we know some Russians came into the country. So, Russians! It was them! Like we said… And they did it next to Porton Down to make it look like it came from Porton Down and wasn't really Russia at all. Crafty Russians. So to sum up, it was the Russians, like we told you. Russians. You don't need any further details or solid information on this topic. No questions. Just remember - it was the Russians!"

It's a police investigation. If they are closing in on actual suspects they are not going to tell anyone what they know, and frankly nor should they. I am actually upset the police said they were closing in on suspects, as that may have tipped the suspects off. I would much rather have heard that the suspects were all in custody, and then their names (after the investigation had nabbed them all).

I think the first burden of proof you must meet McAvennie, is why a British Military Defense Lab would actively use a nerve agent to try to kill a Russian agent who had gone over Britain?

Secondly, what is more likely; that the British killed a retired intelligence asset, or, that a newly assertive, militaristic, and authoritarian ultra-nationalist Russian government would very publicly try to kill an enemy of their regime on foreign soil to scare other ex-patriot and exiled Russians into silence and demonstrate the length of their reach, and their vicious intentions?

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

It does seem odd that a few forumists are so keen to play up the woo factor, rather than stick with the known facts and keep Ockham 's razor close at hand.

Putin vows that traitors will "choke and die" .

Sergei Skripal was a very effective double-agent, who exposed some 300 Russian spies.

Skripal was released from incarceration in Russia as part of a spy swap.

Skripal was described as "still in the game" after moving to the UK and met with intelligence services both in the UK and in former Soviet bloc countries.

Skripal's wife, son and brother die in unclear circumstances.

Skripal and his daughter's email and mobiles are hacked by Russia.

Skripal and his daughter choke and almost die due to being poisoned by Russian nerve agent.

... and yet the tinfoil hat brigade still point the finger at Porton Down!

 

[CuriousIdent]

I don't think it's necessarily that people want to find an alternative conspiracy theory. It's just that if you're going to try and call out a World Leader for arranging an assassination on UK soil, you'd better be pretty bloody sure that you can prove it.

So far the only connection to date is far from based in anything approaching evidence.

I doubt that very many people actually dispute the possibility that this was orchestrated by Russia. But there's still no proof that Boris Johnson's claims of 'signed off personally by Vladimir Putin himself!' is in any way correct. He is a habitual liar, after all. He is a politician who ignores experts and says what he wants.

So you can't really trust that at all.

This is a police investigation, and if the investigation goes to court and is proved by trial then fine. But right now nobody really seems to have any verifiable clue as to how the Skripals came in contact with Novichok.

Nor how Dawn Sturgess or Charlie Rowley did. It's all wild speculation with very little more to it all than the barman's logic of 'Russians did it, innit, yeah?'

 

[Eponastill]

According to this, Novichock-like poisons were developed as 'binary agents' where two simple and innocuous precursors get mixed together to create something nasty. So doesn't that imply that it doesn't have to have been smuggled through customs in a perfume bottle. That it could have been made in a lab (or garage) in this country? Using ingredients that could be found here. (By anyone in the know I guess).
https://cen.acs.org/articles/96/i12/Nerve-agent-attack-on-spy-used-Novichok-poison.html