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Novichok In Salisbury: Secret Agents & Nerve Agents In Britain

AgProv said:
Just a thought, and I don't know if this has been voiced elsewhere. And this, I freely say, is speculation. The nerve agent used seems to have been remarkably ineffectual - you expect these things to kill within seconds, not leave people lingering on for months. Received wisdom - and such military training as I got in these things stressed it - is that the merest droplet on the skin kills. Within minutes, at the outside. It's almost as if the variant used in Salisbury was denatured or diluted, somehow. I'm wondering here. From the Russian point of view, knocking off a dangerous dissident was a result. But what if the real reason was something else: getting the gobby dissident who picked the wrong side was a bonus. What if. somebody was conducting a practical test. Of the ability of a possible enemy to respond to a chemical attack, in a town in one of the most advanced societies in the world. Just one chemical attack tied up the civil defences of Salisbury for months and drew in expertise from the rest of Britain. News coverage enabled the Russians to practically assess how much of Britain's resources would be tied up in investigating and cleaning up afterwards. And this wasn't a full scale bombing or missile attack - just one small isolated incidence which affected a handful of people. Scale up from that and imagine a single aircraft dispersing the full-potency version from overhead as an aerosol... a remarkably cheap way of assessing how open to attack a possible enemy is and how it can be tied down...
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Interesting bit of lateral thinking. Whatever the motives, elimination , cock up, or testing, Putin's mob must have been 100% sure that the finger would have been pointed at them. I suspect also that a full scale chemical attack would elicit a somewhat different response. But never the less a fascinating idea AgProv.
 
This all happened 30 miles up the road (literally) from us! However at the time I was roasting in south India and missed all the 'nerve-agent spook attack meets snow and ice drama' so couldn't post any local reactions. It was 36c on a cool day and we were drinking fresh green coconut whilst slapping on the factor 50. It was a very surreal story when you're (literally) half a world away reading about your nearest city.

There was a massive reaction when Dawn and Colin were affected as innocent bystanders (as far we know, anyway). The local opinion was that yes, they might have been a bit rough and ready but no-one deserves to die trying out a bit of 'perfume' you found boxed up...

AgProv said:
And justnow a major London airport is in total dissaray with millions of pounds in revenue lost, and several hundred thousand people unable to travel - just because of a small number of people disrupting things with drone aircraft that can cost no more than £200 apiece, if that, and who the authorities have been utterly unable to find. If I were minded to conspiracy theories, it's almost as if somebody is experimenting with how to cause as much disruption as possible, with little or no cost to human life, at the lowest possible cost, in the shortest possible time. As if the British security services are being tested out to see how well they respond and how quickly they can resolve the situation... somebody thinking creatively and exploiting a weakness... (and no, i don't think it was the Russians, but you never know... bet they're watching, though!)
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I said something similar to Mr Joolz this morning, maybe it's the eco-extremists, the Russians .... or perhaps someone who really doesn't want their Mum to fly to Malaga for Christmas.
 
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Masterly trolling, if true!
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...hok-attack-skripal-sergei-yulia-a8701111.html
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1078330471040335872

Russian state media sends chocolate models of Salisbury Cathedral as ‘sick’ gift referencing novichok attack
A spokesperson for RT confirmed the photo was genuine and told The Independent that the outlet had sent the chocolate models to “multiple recipients”.

Paula Chertok, a lawyer who analyses pro-Russian propaganda, said seeing a photo of the chocolate cathedral made her “gag”. “There's trolling and there's Russian propaganda infowar trolling – sick, dark, menacing,” she wrote on Twitter.
 
AgProv said:
The nerve agent used seems to have been remarkably ineffectual... It's almost as if the variant used in Salisbury was denatured or diluted, somehow.

What if somebody was conducting a practical test. Of the ability of a possible enemy to respond to a chemical attack, in a town in one of the most advanced societies in the world.
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My opinion is that this was a private job, conducted by moonlighting GRU agents who managed to get hold of a tiny quantity of “past its sell-by date” Novichok. Some oligarch wanted the victim dead, and was put in contact with men whom he thought could do the job as a weekend project, for a price.

They did a clumsy, half-arsed job, and just managed to make it back to Russia ahead of the publicity. l assume that Mother Russia will continue to deny responsibility, that the two suspects will be “protected” from foreign law enforcement agencies, and will - in due course, when the matter has gone off the boil - die in completely unpredictable and unrelated farmyard grand piano accidents.

As to the “practical test” theory, l don’t buy it. Russia is up to its nuts in Syria, where it could test anything it wanted on anyone, any time. Why prod an (admittedly tooth-challenged) tiger like the UK?

maximus otter
 
maximus otter said:
As to the “practical test” theory, l don’t buy it. Russia is up to its nuts in Syria, where it could test anything it wanted on anyone, any time. Why prod an (admittedly tooth-challenged) tiger like the UK? maximus otter
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This was an indirect message to the various Russian agents and mobsters involved in the Trump operation that Mother Russia will not forget you if you flip and rat us out to the FBI. There are quite a large number of both Russian mobsters and agents involved in the Mueller investigation now. Note also how disappointed Putin is that Brexit seems to have stalled despite all the money he spent on the leave campaign (another thing discovered in the Mueller Investigation). Russia bought Trump when they bailed him out of bankruptcy, and he has been their man ever since.
 
maximus otter said:
will - in due course, when the matter has gone off the boil - die in completely unpredictable and unrelated farmyard grand piano accidents.
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Will it be as subtle as that? Possibly. Or perhaps slipping on some slush and splattering their brains all over the road.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
There was 'unusual activity ' at the Russian embassy, including 'unprecedented' and 'frantic' comings and goings, prior to the poisoning of the Skripals. That smoking gun is looking even smokier.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...an-embassy-novichok-attack-skripal-poisonings
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It would be interesting to read a signal intelligence report on that period as well. GCHQ could probably safely report on whether or not there was an increase in messages to the Embassy in that period.
 
A small update:

Skripal poisoning suspects received mystery phone call following attack

Speculation that it was to confirm success of the operation.

A third GRU man, Denis Sergeev, using the cover name Sergey Fedotov, flew in to London hours ahead of his 2 colleagues, flying out the same day as them.

Travel records obtained by the investigative website Bellingcat suggest that all three GRU officers were involved in previous operations. In 2014, Sergeev and Mishkin spent eight days together in Prague. In April 2015, Sergeev visited Bulgaria at the same time a Bulgarian arms dealer was mysteriously poisoned.

Mishkin and Chepiga were booked on two sets out flights back to Moscow – the Aeroflot flight they took after their Salisbury weekend, and an identical flight the next day, Monday 5 March.
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Still a mystery about the Novichok which poisoned Dawn Sturgess almost 4 months later - found in a bin which was emptied regularly.
 
Emergency services spent £900k replacing vehicles after Salisbury attack

Police and ambulance services had to destroy 24 cars, vans and 4x4 vehicles following the attack

The ambulance service was forced to discard eight vehicles, while Wiltshire police had to destroy and replace 16.

A spokesman for the ambulance service said: “The costs involved in the destruction of these vehicles, including staff overtime, have been covered by NHS England with funds from central government. The vehicles have all been replaced at no additional cost to SWASFT.”
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