The security services put an extraordinary amount of media priming effort into explaining why the alleged novichok attack on the Skripals had a delayed effect of several hours, and then failed to kill them. Excuses included that it was a cold day which slowed their metabolisms, that the chemical took a long time to penetrate their skins, that the gel containing the novichok inhibited its operation, that it was a deliberately non-fatal dose, that rain had diluted the novichok on the doorknob, that the Skripals were protected by gloves and possibly only came into contact in taking the gloves off, or that nerve agents are not very deadly and easily treated.
You can take your pick as to which of those convincingly explains why the Skripals apparently swanned round Salisbury for four hours after coming into contact with the novichok coated doorknob, well enough to both drink in a pub and eat a good Italian lunch, before both being instantaneously struck down and disabled at precisely the same time so neither could call for help, despite being different sexes, ages and weights. Just as the chief nurse of the British army happened to walk past.
So now let us fast forward to Alexei Navalny. Traces of “novichok” were allegedly found on a water bottle in his hotel room in Tomsk. That appears to eliminate the cold and the gloves. It also makes it possible he ingested some of the “novichok”. I can find no suggestion anywhere it was contained in a gel. So why was this deadly substance not deadly?
There seems no plain allegation of where Navalny came into contact with the “novichok”. Assuming he spent the night in his hotel room, then the very latest he can have come into contact with the deadly nerve agent would be shortly before he left the room, assuming he then subsequently touched the bottle before leaving. This is true whether the bottle was the source or he just touched it with novichok on his hands. After poisoning with this very deadly nerve agent – which Germany claims is “harder” than other examples, he then checked out of the hotel, went to the airport, checked in for his flight, had a cup of tea and boarded the flight, all before being taken ill. This after contact with a chemical weapon allegedly deadlier than this:
Which of course is aside from all the questions as to why the Russians would use again the poison that was ineffective against the Skripals, and why exactly the FSB would not have swept and cleaned up the hotel room after he had left. All that is even before we get to some of the questions I had already asked:
Further we are expected to believe that, the Russian state having poisoned Navalny, the Russian state then allowed the airplane he was traveling in, on a domestic flight, to divert to another airport, and make an emergency landing, so he could be rushed to hospital. If the Russian secret services had poisoned Navalny at the airport before takeoff as alleged, why would they not insist the plane stick to its original flight plan and let him die on the plane? They would have foreseen what would happen to the plane he was on.
Next, we are supposed to believe that the Russian state, having poisoned Navalny, was not able to contrive his death in the intensive care unit of a Russian state hospital. We are supposed to believe that the evil Russian state was able to falsify all his toxicology tests and prevent doctors telling the truth about his poisoning, but the evil Russian state lacked the power to switch off the ventilator for a few minutes or slip something into his drip. In a Russian state hospital.
Next we are supposed to believe that Putin, having poisoned Navalny with novichok, allowed him to be flown to Germany to be saved, making it certain the novichok would be discovered. And that Putin did this because he was worried Merkel was angry, not realising she might be still more angry when she discovered Putin had poisoned him with novichok
There are a whole stream of utterly unbelievable points there, every single one of which you have to believe to go along with the western narrative. Personally I do not buy a single one of them, but then I am a notorious Russophile traitor.
The eagerness of the Western political establishment to accept and amplify nonsensical Russophobia is very worrying. Fear is a powerful political tool, politicians need an enemy, and still more does the military-industrial complex that so successfully siphons off state money. Many fat livings depend on the notion that Russia poses a serious threat to us. The nonsense people are prepared to believe to maintain that fiction give a most unpleasant glimpse into the human psyche.
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It’s fairly obvious it was MI6, either in conjunction with factions of German intelligence or not. There is a struggle within Europe between the pro US Atlantacists and the pro EU/business community who are sick of US interfering and sanctions on Russia (europe has paid the price of around a trillion Euros in lost business, whilst the expansion of Russian internal economy has boomed by roughly 50%) Van der Leyen has taken her mask off and revealed the stars & stripes tattoo underneath, despite campaigning for her role under a different guise, something which has surprised a lot of people, not least Macron. Its all Nordstream2 and future sanctions. It seems obvious that the Pevchik woman was the conduit the British used to deliver the substance, which presumably was taken willingly by Navalny. The bottle containing the substance was not given to the Russian doctors trying to save Navalnys life in Omsk (a very strange thing to do if youre concerned about your intimate friends health) but she was cognicent enough to keep it in her bag and hand it to the Germans a couple of days later! Then did a runner back to home turf in the UK where she is domiciled (in a nice apartment at someone elses expence)
I was speaking to someone fairly recently about MI6 shenanigans, someone who should know about these things and his opinion was that the British security services were marginally less incompetent than the Americans, which I thought was hardly a recommendation. Although GCHQ are pretty efficient (at stealing and storing all of our data and electronic communications) the rest didnt merit much, incompetence and lack of oversight being a real problem. Anyone paying attention to the enquiry about the Manchester arena bombing would be getting a sniff of that woeful story, the finer details of which will not be revealed due to ‘issues of national security.’ Trying to run terrorists as assets is not a wise policy but hell, lets be honest, we’re all expendable, if we weren’t our country wouldn’t be friends with most of the terrorists in the middle east and allies with the very countries that nurture and fund such ideologies.
The UK is in a sad state on many levels but the stench of utter moral and financial corruption coming from the establishment and The City has become unbearable. Russophobia is part of the distraction and an instant go to as a tool of blame. I have become now totally aware that UK propaganda isn’t in the slightest aimed at the Russians, ‘changing hearts and minds’ etc etc, but exclusively directed at us, the British people, the latest dump of leaks about the integrity initiative prove that beyond all doubt. Hybrid warfare on our own citizens. Non of it has any effect on the Russian people (apart from creating negativity towards the English) which ultimately shows what a failure it is. Britain is in a dark place right now and will remain so for some time.
MI6 wouldn’t have attacked Navalny because they are on the aide of the good guys, as is Navalny.
But Craig raised a good question: why was Navalny alloiwed to live, and escape? Possibly because
(a) Putin only wanted to give him a warning. Roughing him up in an alley might have served the same purpose, but that would need to be accompanied by a sign that this wasn’t the work of common criminals, and the sign would have to be at once unmistakable and deniable – perhaps not an easy problem.
(b) Russia needs trade with the EU, particularly Germany – this economic argument may be the strongest.
Who are these good guys ? Obviously not the general population of the UK or the EU. They are only good guys if you believe the agendas of the US and UK are good ?
No one attacked Navalny. It was all staged to get Germany to stop Nordstream2 via sanctions.
The traces of a Novichok-like substance that were supposedly found on a bottle or in Navalny tissue samples by the Germans they were either:
a) Placed there after the fact once Navalny and the bottles were in Germany, easily done in a military lab.
and/or
b) Totally fabricated.
The fact that no one has leaked a lab report with the testing procedures described and the signature of the chemical analyst tells you something. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. We have absolutely nothing that can be trusted.
John Helmer’s web site “Dances with Bears” does a good job of exposing this fable.
‘No one attacked Navalny. It was all staged to get Germany to stop Nordstream2 via sanctions.’
What I find most odd is that, irrespective of whether Navalny was attacked or naturally ill, Germany would have to be complicit with the Novichok scam. I would find it amazing if their purpose in such complicity was to stop Nordstream 2 given its importance to Germany. Maybe there’re just playing the yanks along for a while.
Hmm….maybe Russia knew of his plan…he is very careless at times….so his going abroad…OPCW Merkel Germany….N…can all be exposed and nullified as fake?
The OPCW did not certify that it was Novichok. See the John Helmer website cited above. It was a German military lab that claimed this, plus allegedy some other labs. It is not even clear that meekel was complicit in the fabrication. It could have been her forwign minister and defence minister both of whom seem keener than Merkel to stop Nord tream 2.
So many people believe that Russia poisoned the Skripals and that Western Islamist proxies represent Islam, that it must suit them to lap up the MSM lies. Thus the MSM are merely catering to popular demand for vicarious alternatives to reality in soaps, films and headlines.
Not making up stuff would be ridiculous, like playing football matches with recorded crowd noise. Nobody would put up with that , would they?
Through the same MO, propaganda and fear, people globally have accepted the “Covid” hoax, allowing it to destroy their economies, lives and livelihoods over a “virus” that has still not been proven to exist with a mortality rate slightly below regular Flu. So it shouldn’t really come as any surprise that “Novichok” and “RUUSSSSSIIIIIAAAAA!!” within a story that as you point out, really doesn’t hang together, should create such widespread fear and acceptance.
The latest hoax did, in the first few days, have the desired effect of having Germany think again about Nord Stream 2 but fortunately some degree of common sense soon returned. As in all these official narratives, the tests of Occam’s Razor and “Cui Bono?” should be applied to help point towards the real culprits.
How come you are so happy to call COVID-19 a hoax. You would also have to explain why China and Russia have also participated in this hoax.
I would be very pleased to debate that with you at length but it is off topic.My original point was merely illustrative of a general trend that these coincidences always seem, just by coincidence, when other issues are either already involved or being primed to become involved.
The Chinese fear the American spooks have been trying to use any tools imaginable to put a spanner into their economic drive, SA, whether they are right or wrong nobody knows, but there’s some justification for the fear.
Have you seen in any of the Western MSM anything about a massive military games in Wuhan in October 2019? Did you know the games were on? A large number of countries (100) participated, the Americans did rather badly (google for it), but more to the point, five of the US sportsmen fell ill, had to be hospitalised, then got transferred to the US military hospital, but neither the Chinese nor the Americans would say what was wrong with the five? Other athletes have claimed since that they too may have had c-19.
https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1094347/world-military-games-illness-covid-19
philipat,
please do be very very cautious choosing your wording. The use of the phrase ‘cui bono’ indicates a russian troll, according to Mr. Ben Nimmo
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/12/cui-bono-david-leask-ben-nimmo-and-the-attack-on-ordinary-scottish-nationalists/
Thanks Tatyana. I am now trembling in fear and will need to be much careful in my choice of words in future. I suppose with a name like yours, they have made specific accusations against you. BTW, I had always believed that Cui Bono was from the Latin not the Russian language?
Absolutely Latin, and the sense of the phrase relates to log8c and deduction, apparently Mr.Nimmo is not aware of this 🙂
Please help, Tatyana:
What is ‘Ойся ты ойся’, please. Is it something from the English language transcribed into Russian? Why this tendency of adopting English words, is the Russian language so poor you cannot come up with good words describing stuff for which you borrow from English? Thanks.
It’s flexia, part of the word which has no meaning without the root. Actually, there are 2 flexias here, meaning ‘do what is indicated by the root of the word’ – imperative, singular.
I guess you got it from the cossaik song, perhaps it is there for rhyme, like la-la-la, no sense, and no borrowings from English, pure Russian 🙂
Many thanks, Tatyana.
It wasn’t a song, it was the heading of a piece on the Politikus site, thanks again.
The words are unique, they are in this song only. So, the author might mean the sense of the lyrics – “don’t you be afraid of me, I’m not going to do any harm, don’t worry”
Or, maybe alluding to the music, which is Caucasian Lezginka, meaning Chechnya or Dagestan?
Aha, I found it! It’s “Marusya” performs that song! I love them, they are amazing! Astonishing wow-effect on seeng a black man singing russian folk songs “we’ve got our swords on us, aren’t we real cossaks? ” 🙂 and they dance Lezginka!
“over a “virus” that has still not been proven to exist”
The full genome has been sequenced literally thousands of times by different labs all over the planet. You can carry on deluding yourself if you wish but if you do so you must question the existence of “The Flu” and all other viruses also as they use the same genome sequencing methods to identify them. Virology labs and the folk that work there will be concerned that you are on to their gravy train of selling a service for things that don’t exist. Imagine the embarassment of governments, health care providers, universities, laboratories and Vit C pushers (:D) when they realise how they have been duped.
https://nextstrain.org/ncov/global
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32333222/
You can argue all you want with the measures taken by governments in response to coronavirus but denying that it exists at all is in the same room as flat earthers.
I’m not sure the gravy train is quite as good as you think, ET. Just consider the vast numbers of people that have to be bribed in order to keep this hoax under wraps!
And, gosh darn it, they must have run out of that bribery loot, because a few supposed experts and doctors are blowing the gaff on some dodgy youtube videos. They were so close too! Never mind all these denialists are all cranks and liars, in this particular case it must be the truth, because they’re saying what other denialists want to hear.
You say the same thing every time anyone takes a diversion from the official narrative, without ever responding to specific points made. It gets boring, isn’t very original and suggests that you have ulterior motives. Again, I would be very happy to take this issue on but it is off topic. Next time Mr Murray starts a thread involving “Covid”, I would be very happy to fully debate you.
Certain to be some enlightening truths from someone who regards the entire mainstream media as “far left”.
Your facts are wrong, they identified 27 pairs from the heavily contaminated original samples of fluid taken from th lungs of Wuhan patients, the rest of the genome was “completed by computers”. I stand by my original statement and would love to debate this with you further but sadly it is off topic. Perhaps when Mr Murray next creates a thread on “Covid-19” we will have an other opportunity.
“So many people”
We have no idea how many people and no way of finding out.
“Just as the chief nurse of the British army happened to walk past.”
Accuracy please!
“Abigail McCourt was with her family when she saw the 66-year-old former KGB spy and his daughter collapsed on a bench at the Maltings shopping centre in Salisbury on the afternoon of 5 March last year.
The 16-year-old thought Sergei Skripal had suffered a heart attack and alerted her mother, Alison, who is an army colonel and chief nursing officer, and they went to administer first aid.” -Guardian article.
If there was a plot with the chief army nurse, it must have involved the daughter as a cutout. Why would the plotters want to involve the chief army nurse, as opposed to any other nurse, when this would make the plot less believable? Were the plotters really concerned that the Skripals receive top brass treatment?
Accuracy from the Guardian!
I am sure the Skrpals are in Portmerion and having tea with Patrick McGoohan
I think Craig makes too much of the “Chief nurse” thing. Unless she’d got wind of the plot and planned to intervene (doubtful) I think It’s just a coincidence. Any self respecting plotter knows to be as far away as possible from the action.
But that’s about the only thing I disagree with
@andic 08:31
“I think Craig makes too much of the “Chief nurse” thing… I think It’s just a coincidence.”
It is QUITE a coincidence, though, is it not? The Skripals must have become obviously ill at almost the precise moment that Col McCourt and her daughter were walking past.
@ramblingidiot 03:43
“If there was a plot with the chief army nurse, it must have involved the daughter as a cutout. Why would the plotters want to involve the chief army nurse, as opposed to any other nurse, when this would make the plot less believable?”
Doesn’t it make more sense for it to have been the Skripals themselves who were the “plotters”, rather than the Army’s chief nurse and her 16 year old daughter. We know the Skripals were wandering around Salisbury for several hours prior to falling ill – it would have been a fairly simple matter for them to have positioned themselves on the bench as Col McCourt and her daughter approached and then begin their act as they pass.
Col McCourt, having just participated in the three week long “Toxic Dagger” exercise, would have been primed and ready to respond to certain symptoms. Not being aware of the “plot” would make her and her daughter’s subsequent interviews all the more genuine.
Yes, the involvement of the Army’s chief nurse does make the idea of a “plot” less believable, both for the general public and the armchair investigator. Perhaps that was the whole point?
I wonder what Col McCourt herself thinks of the “coincidence”?
‘Doesn’t it make more sense for it to have been the Skripals themselves who were the “plotters”,’
Then why would Yulia blow the plot by getting on Russian Facebook?
@IMcK 17:24
In what way has she blown the plot? Didn’t she confirm that she was poisoned?
I’m not saying it’s not a very odd thing to happen coincidentally.
But I don’t see how it would be allowed to happen if she, the chief nurse, was involved. And therefore I cannot see how it undermines the official narrative (unlike CM’s other points).
If medical support was deemed necessary surely it would be provided by half a dozen (SAS?) CMTs, rather than a pen-pusher. I doubt that she’d be required to supervise anything either.
I could be wrong but I think it’s a distraction from the other more obvious holes.
Missing the point.
It may be a total co-incidence that the first person to help the Skripals was THE CHIEF NURSING OFFICER OF HER MAJESTY’S ARMED FORCES. These things happen. She lived and worked nearby. Ahem.
The problem is that THE CHIEF NURSING OFFICER OF HER MAJESTY’S ARMED FORCES was happy to allow her beloved daughter to administer First Aid, presumably to Yulia.
This means that THE CHIEF NURSING OFFICER OF HER MAJESTY’S ARMED FORCES did not recognise the Skripals as suffering from a neurotoxin.
Which means that either, THE CHIEF NURSING OFFICER OF HER MAJESTY’S ARMED FORCES was a hopeless incompetent, or, THE CHIEF NURSING OFFICER OF HER MAJESTY’S ARMED FORCES saw that the Skripals were not suffering from neurotoxin poisoning.
Work out which is the most likely scenario. Given the failure of Novochok to actually kill anybody.
I expect they are in Moscow as per a deal.
THe Chief Nurse would probably live and shop in Salisbury.
I wouldn’t accept that account from the Guardian as any more accurate than from the UK govt itself. It wasn’t top brass treatment that was being given to the Skripals but control over them and their movements by the top brass et al.
Actually, Prue, I think that I would consider “The Guardian” even less reliable a source than the UK government. I know it is hard to imagine, but the government mostly lies only when it is trying to accomplish some evil end. “The Guardian” lies compulsively.
Police logs show that Abigail McCourt was the second person to call 999 and she said she called her mum first. This was first reported in local media and here is John Helmer’s blog:-
http://johnhelmer.net/novichok-full-o-nuts-in-the-case-of-sergei-skripal-police-commissioner-angus-macpherson-lifts-the-lid/
But keep poisoning that well…
I was surprised to read that Abigail McCourt telephoned her mum. I think that is a misreading by Mr Helmer.
The “Shropshire Star” reports this:
“A teenage girl was the first person to help Novichok poisoning victims Sergei and Yulia Skripral, it has emerged.
“Abigail McCourt was WITH HER FAMILY when she saw the 66-year-old ex-KGB spy and his daughter collapsed on a bench at The Maltings shopping centre in Salisbury on the afternoon of March 5 last year.
The 16-year-old thought Mr Skripral had suffered a heart attack and ALERTED HER MOTHER ALISON, who is an Army colonel and chief nursing officer, and THEY WENT to administer first aid.”
“‘It was my brother’s birthday and WE were out celebrating, and WE were coming home and I saw them on the bench,’ Abigail, who learnt first aid at school, told Salisbury-based radio station Spire FM.
“’At this point people were still walking past and I don’t think anyone had really noticed them.’
“’I TOLD MY MUM because I thought he was having a heart attack. WE went over and it developed from there.'”
(My emphases.)
https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/uk-news/2019/01/20/teenage-girl-tells-of-helping-skripals-after-novichok-poisoning/
If this is an honest and accurate account, it certainly argues against the idea that Colonel McCourt was there on purpose, but it does not mean that her daughter telephoned her to bring her to the scene.
While we’re questioning the accuracy of the Guardian, could I mention a report from that great newspaper of record, The Sun (I think it was them) a few days after the poisonings. They found a witness who saw the Skripals in the restaurant in the company of a man who according to the witness “looked like a spy”. I think the witness was right about that and I think I know who that man became.
…who? 🙂
You need to put this into context and within the whole disconnected narrative. The story I believe came out later and not at the time. By which time the ‘fact’ that the Skripals were poisoned by Putin was well established and the need to quibble with minor details. If the news were leaked in March 2018 it would certainly have raised eyebrows.
The fortunate appearance of the British Army’s top nurse at the scene makes the whole Skripal incident look like a pre-planned operation. However, the involvement of her 16 yr old daughter makes this seem unlikely (why drag a non-professional into it, especially your own innocent young daughter?).
The only scenario that I can see that reconciles these two versions is that whatever happened to the Skripals on that day was unexpected, or at least it was not decided until just beforehand.
When the incident occurred, the authorities suddenly would have needed someone they could trust to attend to the victims and keep quiet about it. That person happened to be Col. Alison McCourt because she happened to be in the vicinity. It could just as easily been some doctor or scientist from Porton Down, but none of them were free at such short notice.
In this scenario, Col. McCourt got the call while she was out with her family, and she arranged to ‘accidentaly’ pass near the park bench where the Skripals were sitting. She didn’t even need to pretend to notice the two people in distress – her alert young daughter beat her to it in noticing them. And when young Abigail accepted a local Lifesaver Award the following year, she didn’t need to lie because she really believed that she just happened to be passing by the bench with her Mum when she saw the two sick people.
So what caused the Skripal incident to occur so unexpectedly that Col. McCourt had to be called in? I don’t have a definite answer to that but it could have something to do to do with the unexplained presence of two other people in Salisbury that afternoon – Petrov and Boshirov, or whatever their real names are.
No, they weren’t there to kill or harm the Sergei Skripal with Novichok sprayed on his door handle. That story is just impossible. It’s quite likely that they were there to make contact with him and Yulia in a way that some people were not happy about. That could be why the Skripals had to disappear.
I think I agree with your last points. The bit that fascinates me is the CCTV from within the stamp shop. Looking at body language it seems probable that the large bloke is a spook ‘watcher’, and the spooks knew in advance that the Russians would be coming. I would really like to see the video from about 20 seconds earlier, to see if he was looking over his right shoulder as they approached.
Not only that, but Petrov and Boshirov really were ordinary tourists, determined to see a 123 meter spire. No way are they Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga and Doctor Alexander Mishkin of the Russian military, that’s just more conspiracy theories.
Of course they may have been bumbling KGB agents, intent in proving the Russian state involvement, or they may have a counterplot to a plot that the KGB got hold of. Their connection with any novichoks or poisonings is rather tenuous.
They would have to be very bumbling, still to imagine themselves working for an organisation that ceased to exist 29 years ago.
I am a bit out of date, or just lazy.
But seriously, such people – agents of counterintelligence or military intelligence – do not bumble. They are carefully selected and rigorously trained; and they operate under strictly controlled policies.
I imagine that even their British opposite numbers are competent. I say nothing of the Americans.
@Tom Welsh 13:43
“such people… do not bumble”
Your faith in the “Intelligence” Services is touching.
“they operate under strictly controlled policies”
Controlled by whom, exactly?
I would recommend you read “The Intelligence Game” by James Rusbridger.
Mods
Thank you. I appreciate that the post was mainly a cut and paste with little contribution from me. I thought however that the copied test was quite relevant and also sufficiently detailed in itself. I will bear in mind next time.
In case it hasn’t been posted earlier, another security direction to the Independent (nobody tells them what to print).
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/uk-russia-cyber-attack-warfare-lord-mark-sedwill-b1264996.html
Well something made Navalny sick; unless he was faking it, and faking it well enough to fool the staff at two hospitals. If it wasn’t the Novichok identified by German, French and Swedish labs and the OPCW (who said it was a variant they’d not seen before) what was it and what would induce them all to lie about it?
you best ask the specialist at Porton Down Kempe, they have the expertise and lack of integrity. They might offer you a lucrative short term contract as a guinea pig.
” If it wasn’t the Novichok identified by German, French and Swedish labs and the OPCW (who said it was a variant they’d not seen before) what was it and what would induce them all to lie about it?”
I bet you didn’t have straight face when you typed in that bollocks, I know I couldn’t had done it without laughing.
1. Any of the no doubt thousands of drugs and poisons at the disposal of Western skullduggery, sorry, intelligence services.
2. Money.
For me the Occam’s Razor conclusion is that he fell ill for some non-politics-or-espionage-related reason (many have suggested diabetes, but I don’t know), and everything since then has been opportunistic improvisation by Western politicians and their bosses in the security services, with the help of Navalny’s associates and, since he recovered, the man himself (though I wonder how thrilled he really is at having now become a pure plaything for these Western pols and spooks, notwithstanding his hostility to Putin).
As for the various labs, if you’re interested it probably would pay to see *exactly* what they are saying about what they received, whence and how they received it, and what they found. As for the OPCW, you’re behind on the news if you think their complicity is surprising.
Occam’s Razor is a good and useful principle in science.
For human affairs it is less helpful, as human beings are far too complicated and opaque for such simple tools.
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”
– Jeremiah 17:9
Somewhere in the X Files Scully says Mulder calls it ‘Occam’s Principle of Limited Imagination’.
Strangely enough the OPCW report is rather odd and non-commital. It talks about biomarkers and never mentions the name of the choline esterase inhibitor:
“The results of the analysis of biomedical samples conducted by the OPCW designated laboratories demonstrate that Mr Navalny was exposed to a toxic chemical acting as a cholinesterase inhibitor. The biomarkers of the cholinesterase inhibitor found in Mr Navalny’s blood and urine samples have similar structural characteristics to the toxic chemicals belonging to schedules 1.A.14 and 1.A.15, which were added to the Annex on Chemicals to the Convention at the Twenty-Fourth Session of the Conference of the States Parties in November 2019. This cholinesterase inhibitor is not listed in the Annex on Chemicals to the Convention.”
This is scientific goobledegook. What exactly do they mean by biomarkers and why can’t they name them? And they can’t even identify the cholinesterase inhibitor, they just say it is not listed. Doesn’t really prove anything.
Sorry link here:
https://www.opcw.org/sites/default/files/documents/2020/10/s-1906-2020%28e%29.pdf
here is the interview (in russian)
https://ria.ru/20201009/navalnyy-1578979334.html
Leonid Rink, the developer of Novichok, comments on the OPCW report.
Novichok is a two-component organophosphorus system, made up of substances fairly harmless in isolation. If you combine them and detonate them over the battlefield, you can poison the enemy.
The OPCW found traces of either amines or amides in the samples (the latter has no toxicity at all) BUT DID NOT FIND organophosphates – an absolutely necessary condition to talk about the Novichok in particular, and about toxic substances in general.
In Navalny’s samples, something is detected that does not happen in healthy people. Russian doctors believe that this is the result of a disease, Western doctors – that these are the remnants of Novichok.
The way it works Tatyana is that the Western Intelligence services put out the bullshit story, refer to, but don’t produce, any evidence. This is parroted uncritically by the media. Any challenges to this version are not met with facts but the challengers are smeared as being ‘unpatriotic’. By the time the truth begins to emerge despite the flawed OPCW output, the caravan, as they say has moved on.
Then, when the next production is floated, the commentators rely on the previous mendacious production as evidence in support of the latest production.
And Kempe, the doctors in Omsk did find abnormal finding and there is a suggestion that he may have had hypoglycaemia which could cause confusion and hallucination, which he had. Nobody is denying he was sick but the evidence of state poisoning just does not stand up to reason.
Very convincing Kempe. How can you identify something, that you have not seen before? Do you watch the Harry Potter films? Perhaps you may find there an answer.
Surely they know they’re not equipped to go toe to toe with the Bear? Have they forgotten already how Sam had to pull their chestnuts out of the fire in both Iraq and Afghanistan? And that was succeeded by a decade of MoD cuts. Somebody has to have a word in the ears of people like Tugendhat and Williamson before the Bear actually calls their bluff and we all suffer. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be anybody in the British establishment willing to rein in these dangerous chickenhawks.
Craig – re your trial: Originally your trial was set for 22-23 Oct 2020 (https://twitter.com/CraigMurrayOrg/status/1280563672184688640 ) but it seems that has changed. I must have missed that tweet.
When is it due to happen now?
The previous Director Of OPCW gave an interview to Aaron Mate’ of The Grayzone. He described how his office had been bugged. How Bolton had threatened him, saying we know where your children are. How the American in charge of security at OPCW disappeared the day after the bugs were found in his office. The OPCW oversaw the removal of chemical weapons from Russia. The US still has theirs. Its vital work has been totally discredited by its infiltration and politicisation. If some could post the link to Aaron’s interview with him please.
Ex-OPCW chief defends Syria whistleblowers and reveals he was spied on before Iraq war (You Tube)
George Orwell: “Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.”
William Casey, ex-CIA director: “We’ll know when our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”
Late 2017, OPCW signs off on Russia destroying all of its Chemical Weapons.
I’m led to believe the the Machiavellian, dastardly Putin wishing harm to his country via sanctions then concocted the assassination of the Skripals using the most deadly chemical known, thereby also pissing off the OPCW, and helping the UK Chemical Warfare industry benefiting from the £30m+ windfall.
I’m led to believe the timings are an issue from something that took place, near one of the UKs most sensitive areas, Porton Down.
I’m led to believe that the timings are here and there, in full knowledge that I and Sergei Skripal are aware that his property was bugged including video surveillance, and that his ‘fear from assassination’ would have doubly made it the case. One wonder why Parliamentarians haven’t asked if this wasn’t the case, why it wasn’t and is it now Standard Operating Procedure?
Billion dollar rain has been on tv….at the end Colonel Shtok say to Harry Palmer….kinda saying .take those virus infected eggs back to Porton Down where they were stolen from….we know a lot more about these kind of things than you do…..we remember things like Leningrad…..
In England Colonel, the historic mission of the proletariat consists almost entirely of momentary interest.
And, one of the Elephants in the room is that Navalny is almost certainly a CIA asset charged (and funded) with destabilising the Russian government. Straight out of the CIA playbook “how to overthrow Governments: 101”.
I must say that the opinion of many here – Navalny is beneficial to Putin, he demonstrates that there is some kind of opposition in Russia. Loud but toothless. Many think it’s Putin who funds Navalny 🙂
Navalny is/was? linked to Vladimir Ashurkov who is part of Integrity Initiative’s Russia cluster. So MI6 is involved
Navalny is a friend to Peter Versilov from Pussy Riot, that doesn’t make Navalny a singer. Though, neither is Verzilov.
I should think most if not all of these “oppositionist” activist people in Russia – Navalny, Verzilov, Tolokonnikova, Anastasia Vasilyeva, Lyubov Sobol, Ksenia Sobchak, Maria Gaidar, the folks at Moscow Times, Moscow Echo and Novaya Gazeta, the late lamented Boris Nemtsov, Navalny associate Maria Pevchikh (who may very well be a British intel asset, as she is a British resident who owns and runs a couple of bookshops in the UK) – know or have known one another fairly well and are part of a network or linked networks. Some of them may even have been put in contact with each other by whoever controls them or gives them their instructions.
Hi, Jen 🙂
I mentioned in a comment (now deleted) that Yulia Skripal and Maria Pevchikh are the same age, both russians and have British citizenship as well. That makes the chance they could know each other, I know migrants tend to look for help among their compatriots
This seems a fair assessment of the Novichok story as it has been presented to us. It is not unfair or unreasonable to ask questions about inconsistencies in the official story, to dismiss the questions as as some sort of wild conspiracy seems perverse in the extreme. The reasons to why the story does not make sense we can only guess at, I personally am willing to believe the the narrative is incomplete and that there are bad actors in the story whose role has not been presented. I image that for security reasons these have been dropped out as they put the security services in a bad light or draw attention to facts that are an embarrassment to the powers that be, possibly because they show incompetence. The Navainly case either proves how useless Novichok is or, more likely, is just an attempt to jump on the anti Russian narrative by skewing a misfortune affecting a Putin critic into a piece of propaganda.
Craig commented on this blog in 2019 –
‘The “White Helmets” operation managed for MI6 by Le Mesurier was both a channel for logistic support to Western backed jihadists and a propaganda operation to shill for war in Syria, as in Iraq or Libya. Wars which were of course very profitable for arms manufacturers, energy interests and the security establishment. It should surprise nobody that Le Mesurier intersects with the Philip Cross propaganda operation which, with the active support of arch Blairite Jimmy Wales, has for years been slanting Wikipedia in support of the same pro-war goals as pushed by the “White Helmets”.’
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/11/le-mesurier-gets-cross/
The evidence points to the Skripals being poisoned with BZ by the British army’s chief nursing officer.
Someone posted this on the Independent comment section below an article :
“…the OPCW did not collect the blood samples from the alleged novichok victims [Sergei and Yulia], those samples were taken by Colonel Alison McCourt’s military medic team who had taken over that ward in Salisbury hospital.”
Is that true?
Craig – thank you very much for your common sense and logic in the face of so much mania and disinformation. Your comments on the Skripal and Navalny cases are sensible and restrained, and invite the reader to study the evidence rather than rely on the latest anti-Russian press release from The Guardian. Well done!
As a destitute American, being poisoned by lethal deadly novichok seems a pretty sweet gig, so if evil Vladimir Putin is reading this, please sign me up. A week or two in the hospital, then fame and fortune [well depending on where the Skripals currently are; maybe on the UK dole; or maybe a few feet below the earth in a random forest, or chained to weights at the bottom of the Arctic Sea].
Some might even call me an “opposition leader” despite my being nothing of the sort. How cool would that be! Only gig sweeter would be raking in millions by declaring myself leader of say, Syria or Uganda. Where’s my gold, Bank of England? Where’s my oil company, Citgo? Where’s my drug cartels, Colombia? I can be a good fake president too–especially if I’m a brave survivor of a lethal deadly poison! Put me before Congress, they’ll give me a standing ovation I swear!
I didn’t watch the BBC drama The Salisbury Poisonings because it was of course complete fiction, as was the event itself, but I assume it had Nick Bailey going to Sergei Skripal’s house with a couple of colleagues a few hours after the Skripals supposedly became ill. Now given that Sergei and Yulia were seriously ill (or so we were led to believe) AND in hospital, surely the most obvious thing in the world would have been for Bailey and his two colleagues to remove the guinea pigs and the cat and arrange to have them taken somewhere where they can be checked over (although at this point there was no reason why anyone should think they needed checking over) and taken care of. Of course you would. But several weeks later we are being told that the guinea pigs have died, and that the cat was in such a bad way it had to be put to sleep.
I mean it’s inconceivable that Nick Bailey and his two colleagues would just leave them there, but just for the record, as soon as he learnt that it was Sergei Skripal (the following day), his vet phoned the police to notify them about the pets and offered to help in any way he could, as mentioned in the following Sun article, which ALSO has the guinea pigs and the cat alive and well!:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5833121/russian-sergei-skripals-pet-cat/
The good news is that no animals were harmed in the making of this movie!
In the Sun article I linked to, the sub-heading reads: ‘Neighbours say the poisoned Russian spy’s animals have not been seen since he was hospitalised’. Well, the neighbours obviously weren’t referring to the guinea pigs, and were obviously referring to the cat AND that it was a cat that was free to go out whenever it wanted to. But why would the neighbours refer to animals in the plural……. In an article in the Sun dated the 3rd of April 2018 it says the following (referring to Sergei Skripal’s niece Viktoria):
According to reports, police believe the novichok was ‘wiped on the front door’ of the the ex-spy’s Salisbury home.
Viktoria said: “Nonsense. First of all, it is not possible to go close [to the house].
“Secondly, if they were poisoned there, what happened to the animals? They had a cat Masyanya from Russia and one more cat, from a shelter, then there were two guinea pigs.”
Well she should know! In other words, the neighbours were referring to TWO cats. And the point I want to make is this: That it is inconceivable – as I said in my initial post – that Nick Bailey and his two colleagues would just leave the animals there and forget about them AND/OR that the police would just completely ignore Sergei Skripal’s vet when he phoned them the following day to alert them to the fact that he has a number of pets. BUT, on top of that, surely once it had been determined that the Skripals had been poisoned by an ‘unknown substance’, as it was initially being referred to, police officers would have then gone to the location and questioned all of Sergei Skripal’s immediate neighbours, and in so doing, learnt about his pets, including the guinea pigs (along with his two cats).
And when Viktoria says “it is not possible to go close (to the house)”, surely the only thing she could mean is that Sergei Skripal had security cameras (or at least one, which monitored the front of the property), which ALSO makes a mockery of the possibility that the two alleged would-be assassins wouldn’t have been caught on camera on the one hand OR that it didn’t occur to those who were involved in planning the assassination that he has more-than-likely got security cameras. Of course it would. And also that there are more-than-likely OTHER households in the vicinity with security cameras, apart from which it is ludicrous beyond words that anyone would come up with such a plan to assassinate someone – ie in broad daylight, and coating a lethal substance on the door handle….. can you imagine them standing there doing it! I was going to say how absurd it would be to plan or think to carry out an assassination attempt in such a manner when just one heavy shower could wash it all off, but I was forgetting that we learnt some time later – on April 5th – that those pesky Russians experimented with placing nerve agents/Novichok on door handles……. Here’s a few clips from the Daily Mail:
Russia has explored carrying out assassinations by placing nerve agent Novichok on door handles, the Daily Mail can reveal.
Now British intelligence agencies have evidence that Russia had been testing the deadly agent specifically on door handles in the run-up to the attack on March 3.
Agents also have highly sensitive information showing Moscow tested the poison on other ‘everyday objects’, it emerged last night.
And last but not least:
They would not say when the evidence of Russia testing Novichok on door handles had come to light for security reasons – confirming only that the details had been unearthed in ‘recent times’.
A source said this key evidence had been handed over to Britain’s allies in a move described as unprecedented intelligence sharing.
Now if only whoever ‘handed over’ such ‘key evidence’ had thought to hand it over at the point where it’s all over the media world-wide that Sergei Skripal (and his daughter) had been poisoned by an unknown substance – and bear in mind that the evil Ruskies were being blamed in the media by the very next day – then it wouldn’t have been some three weeks before the chemical weapons experts thought to check the front-door handle!
In the Real World of course, they would have been at the house the very next day, and the door handle would have been the very first thing they checked prior to entering the house!
In the Sun article I linked to, the sub-heading reads: ‘Neighbours say the poisoned Russian spy’s animals have not been seen since he was hospitalised’. Well, the neighbours obviously weren’t referring to the guinea pigs, and were obviously referring to the cat AND that it was a cat that was free to go out whenever it wanted to. But why would the neighbours refer to animals in the plural……. In an article in the Sun dated the 3rd of April 2018 it says the following (referring to Sergei Skripal’s niece Viktoria):
According to reports, police believe the novichok was ‘wiped on the front door’ of the the ex-spy’s Salisbury home.
Viktoria said: “Nonsense. First of all, it is not possible to go close [to the house].
“Secondly, if they were poisoned there, what happened to the animals? They had a cat Masyanya from Russia and one more cat, from a shelter, then there were two guinea pigs.”
Well she should know! In other words, the neighbours were referring to TWO cats. And the point I want to make is this: That it is inconceivable – as I said in my initial post – that Nick Bailey and his two colleagues would just leave the animals there and forget about them AND/OR that the police would just completely ignore Sergei Skripal’s vet when he phoned them the following day to alert them to the fact that he has a number of pets. BUT, on top of that, surely once it had been determined that the Skripals had been poisoned by an ‘unknown substance’, as it was initially being referred to, police officers would have then gone to the location and questioned all of Sergei Skripal’s immediate neighbours, and in so doing, learnt about his pets, including the guinea pigs (along with his two cats).
And when Viktoria says “it is not possible to go close (to the house)”, surely the only thing she could mean is that Sergei Skripal had security cameras (or at least one, which monitored the front of the property), which ALSO makes a mockery of the possibility that the two alleged would-be assassins wouldn’t have been caught on camera on the one hand OR that it didn’t occur to those who were involved in planning the assassination that he has more-than-likely got security cameras. Of course it would. And also that there are more-than-likely OTHER households in the vicinity with security cameras, apart from which it is ludicrous beyond words that anyone would come up with such a plan to assassinate someone – ie in broad daylight, and coating a lethal substance on the door handle….. can you imagine them standing there doing it! I was going to say how absurd it would be to plan or think to carry out an assassination attempt in such a manner when just one heavy shower could wash it all off, but I was forgetting that we learnt some time later – on April 5th – that those pesky Russians experimented with placing nerve agents/Novichok on door handles……. Here’s a few clips from the Daily Mail:
Russia has explored carrying out assassinations by placing nerve agent Novichok on door handles, the Daily Mail can reveal.
Now British intelligence agencies have evidence that Russia had been testing the deadly agent specifically on door handles in the run-up to the attack on March 3.
Agents also have highly sensitive information showing Moscow tested the poison on other ‘everyday objects’, it emerged last night.
And last but not least:
They would not say when the evidence of Russia testing Novichok on door handles had come to light for security reasons – confirming only that the details had been unearthed in ‘recent times’.
A source said this key evidence had been handed over to Britain’s allies in a move described as unprecedented intelligence sharing.
Now if only whoever ‘handed over’ such ‘key evidence’ had thought to hand it over at the point where it’s all over the media world-wide that Sergei Skripal (and his daughter) had been poisoned by an unknown substance – and bear in mind that the evil Ruskies were being blamed in the media by the very next day – then it wouldn’t have been some three weeks before the chemical weapons experts thought to check the front-door handle!
In the Real World of course, they would have been at the house the very next day, and the door handle would have been the very first thing they checked prior to entering the house!
https://www.thesun.ie/news/2394720/sergei-skripals-family-demand-to-know-why-ex-spys-beloved-pet-cats-and-guinea-pigs-didnt-die-from-nerve-agent/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5579643/Russia-tested-using-nerve-agent-poisoned-spy-door-handles.html
So on the 28th of March it’s all over the MSM that the Novichok was on the front door handle, and that that is where all three of them – ie Sergei and Yulia Skripal and Nick Bailey – came in to contact with it, and then just a week later it suddenly emerges that the Russians had been experimenting with putting Novichok on door handles. And doing so in the weeks prior to the (alleged) assassination attempt!
How very fortuitous! I bet they had a good laugh when someone came up with THAT one!!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43577987
Whilst doing some research just now re Nick Bailey I came across this Daily Mail article from March 8th 2018 with the following headline:
Police probe whether Russian spy was poisoned with nerve agent at his own house as it emerges 21 people were hospitalised after attack and sick detective ‘didn’t have direct contact with Skripals’
It of course begs the question how it is that we didn’t learn about Novichok being found on the front door handle until March 28th, after three-and-a-half weeks of the MSM endlessly speculating about how and where the Skripals were (allegedly) poisoned – ie came into contact with it:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5476507/Poison-plot-police-officer-awake-talking.html
And in a Manchester Evening News article I came across from March 7th, there’s a picture with a police car and a police land rover parked in front of Sergei Skripal’s house, one in the drive, and the other parked in front of it. No sign of any police officers though, and it does seem rather odd that the property hasn’t been cordoned off AND have police officers standing guard, so to speak, although I have come across a picture in the past with two police officers standing out the front, but I can’t remember when it was from – ie the article with said picture:
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/uk-news/russian-spy-salisbury-police-officer-14381178
For all we know, unbelievability and farce might simply be being used here to justify the privatisation of Porton Down. While we are all struggling with the red herring of Russian involvement, Boris Johnson’s only achievement as London Mayor was selling off property.
I’m not going to say who might want to buy it, but it might be a useful addition to some country’s global portfolio. I am reminded of the information earlier this year that the Wuhan equivalent to Porton Down had received funding for research into Corona virus from the US Defense Budget.
As to Navalny , Novichok and Merkel, in diplomatic terms Germany and Russia are clearly now world players while Britain and the US have been busy trashing the Middle East with proxy headchoppers. Our novichok story is all about raising capital by selling off the entire UK lock stock and barrel, while Merkel’s novichok story proves Germany’s industrial competence are a world competitive level.
In short, Britain is led by a buffoon whose only strategy is to poodle to the US and it’s disgusting policies while the leader of the EU joins the adults in Moscow.
magic novichock
it’s everywhere avoid it
and fuck the media
great Haiku Brian, firing on all cylinders..
Here is one from today anchored in the past
‘Two throttlebottling snollygosters tears and fears America’.
Interesting Nevermind Cheers ..Stay well x
Thank you for Welcome Back
I’d like to clear up a few popular myths that appear in these comments.
The affair at the bench was an MI6-led diversionary operation. It did not involve the Skripals, who had left Zizzi’s for a pre-arranged rendezvous at The Mill pub. A Russian couple then living in a small nearby town were used as decoys at the bench, while the main operation had been planned to take place in the car park at the rear of The Mill.
It was Dr McCourt’s team who attended the two Russians at the hospital, identified there falsely as the Skripals, for they were carrying Skripal ID as arranged. McCourt had been heavily involved in Operation Toxic Dagger, and its urban version was very visibly launched in Salisbury with the intention of deceiving and terrorising the public into believing that a Novichok attack had actually taken place. (Covert training for this simulated urban nerve agent attack had recently taken place in a local town, a role-playing night exercise). The Skripals were never at the hospital. No nerve agents were ever used in Salisbury or Amesbury.
The Russians had been warned of the planned attack on the Skripals and took decisive action in the car park, chemically incapacitating three British police officers, including Nick Bailey, who never visited the Skripal home, let alone touched a door handle ‘smeared with Novichok’ by Russian assassins who only existed in the febrile imaginations of the dangerous psyops fantasists pulling the strings. HMG’s operation had been completely neutralised.
@Box 600 02:55
“I’d like to clear up a few popular myths”
*proceeds to outline the most convoluted and incomprehensible theory thus far*
Let me try and get this straight:
It was actually MI6 and/or the police who wanted the Skripals dead?
Their cunning plan was to lure him out of his (MI6 safe) house in order to carry out the “hit” in a public house car park in the middle of the day. (Sounds reasonable)
Somehow, “The Russians” got wind of this dastardly plan and sent over two of their finest to save the traitor that had betrayed them. (Why?)
MI6 knew “The Russians” were coming (How?) and so arranged for a decoy couple to be sitting on a bench in a different location. (Why? Or was it “The Russians” who arranged the decoys? Again, why?)
While the decoy couple were being treated by Col McCourt and her daughter (For what?), the MI6/police assassins were prevented from murdering the Skripals in the car park by “The Russians” chemically incapacitating them.
“The Russians” then managed to evade a presumably large MI5/MI6/Police surveillance operation and escaped back to Russia on their scheduled flight (taking the Skripals with them? Or did they leave them in the car park?)
Genius. Thanks for clearing that up for us
This guys name is Paul. He keeps parroting the same theory on TheBlogmire.
Interesting that Her Maj was instructed to visit Porton Down recently.
Steve Bell.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2020/oct/15/steve-bell-queen-visit-porton-down-cartoon
🙂
I thought he had been “let go”?
Next April apparently. His work is the only good thing in the Guardian.
Tisdall has been promoting Biden His Time.
‘From climate to China, how Joe Biden is plotting America’s restoration
The challenger aims to fix the foreign policy upheaval of the Trump years but such an agenda presents many challenges’
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/25/from-climate-to-china-how-joe-biden-is-plotting-americas-restoration
Biden – The saviour of the Western world!
@Mary 08:55
“Biden – The saviour of the Western world!”
The contents of Hunter’s hard drives have begun to be released (from a dissident Chinese source).
It’s not looking good for “Sleepy Joe”.
‘Saviour of the Western world’ – a 77 year old, possibly with dementia.
At the risk of being called ageist, I can’t help thinking that it would be a good idea to define a mandatory age bracket, eg. [50-65], for those who want to hold senior positions in government, particularly the highest public offices. Does anyone really want to have their country run by their Dad, or Mum ?
He is working his notice.
Re. the OPCW report about Navalny, shared earlier by SA
https://www.opcw.org/sites/default/files/documents/2020/10/s-1906-2020%28e%29.pdf
and commented by Leonid Rink, the developer of Novichok
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/10/magic-novichok/comment-page-2/#comment-961508
—
A bit of biology and chemistry, I’m sorry for too much reading:
with food we get Choline – formerly known as vitamin B4 – this substance regulates Insulin in the body.
If Choline is heated or dried, then a water molecule gets split off from it, and it turns into a highly toxic Neurin. That processes occurs naturally, Neurin is present in rotting meat or in cadaveric poison.
When we get Choline inside of a nerve cell, it attaches an Acetyl group and turns into Acetyl+Choline – an essential substance for transmitting nerve impulses. Its existence in the body is a continuous transformation, a constant process, normally it’s very quickly destroyed by Acetyl+Cholin-Esterase and we get Choline again.
If we prevent this Esterase from working, we will get an overabundance of Acetyl+Cholin, and we will see – constricted pupils, low blood pressure, low pulse rate, discharge from all openings and organs that are capable of secreting something. This is how organophosphate poisons work – chlorophosum, carbophosum, sarin, soman – they prevent Esterase from doing its job.
In chemical terms, the mechanism of Acetyl+Cholin-Esterase inhibition is called phosphorylation, and I dare say, one cannot phosphorylate something without phosphorus, however hard they might try 🙂
OPCW found no phosphorus. What OPCW found is amines – this is a very vague description, because amines are normally found in the human body, e.g. adrenaline, serotonin, melatonin, or amino acid residues from decay. And of course, the part of the OPCW report with factual data is classified. We are only allowed to know the conclusion that some amines in Navalny are the remnants of Novichok.
But Novichok, as a phosphate poison. Where is the phosphorus, Lebowski?
Thank you for your blog post: Magic Novichok.
I was arguing the same case just two days ago, to a very unreceptive audience. The absolute antagonism that blinds common viewpoint when it comes to discussing, (intelligently), any story originating from these parts is very concerning. As intelligent humans, we should question everything, especially when handed a blank check. Unfortunately, our arrant refusal to ponder the out-lying possibilities is framing policy decisions and public opinion in ways that needn’t be.
A heart-felt “thank you” from one who shares your concern.
I’ve been hinting but now here it is. My best theory about the Salisbury incident. The Skripals went into town to meet an MI6 handler (the man looking like a spy that they were seen in the restaurant with) . A lunch, not particularly fancy, on expenses and a chat. They may not have known that the handler was planning to give Yulia a perfume bottle, all nicely wrapped in cellophane like she’d bought it in a shop or the duty-free, to take back to Moscow with her. What none of them knew was that the Russians knew about the false-flag operation that was being planned. Maybe something along the lines of the Navalny poisoning. Russian agents arrived and poisoned the three of them as a lesson to MI6. They all ended up in hospital and the handler was given a cover identity. Meanwhile the perfume bottle went walk-about in the confusion and came into the hands of Charlie Rowley. This theory answers the big questions. Why did the Russians target the Skripals in particular? Why did they use such a high profile and unreliable weapon? Why was there poison in a rather unmanly perfume bottle that was still wrapped in cellophane? And why were we fed all that ludicrous guff about the doorknob?
Where did you get the strange idea that Novichok acts fast? The first reported poisoning with Novichok was that of Andrei Zheleznyakov, a Soviet technician working in a military laboratory. It took him almost one year to die.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/22/andrei-zheleznyakov-soviet-scientist-poisoned-novichok
Well it’s more plausible that the victims fell ill shortly after being poisoned than that both Skripals fell ill simultaneously many hours after exposure even though most likely only one touched the doorknob when they left the house. We do know that none of them or Navalny had to wait a year for the effects so your point is rather irrelevant.
Bear in mind that the Skripal house has two doors( a UPVC outer porch door and the actual door that opens into the house).
How often did the Skripals go in and out on the day?
Where is the CCTV pictures of them wandering around Salisbury pre- attack?
Big question for myself is:
What did Dawn actually die of?
Still no answer from the authorities.
Dawn is the only person out of the ‘ Novichoked ‘ victims who is dead.
The Police Officer has now retired,
In all this, you always have to ask not only what actually happened but what would the perpetrators have thought might happen. Would they poison a doorknob without knowing who was going to touch it? Especially if there was a car outside and they knew who would drive or could poison all the door handles instead. Would they give a male agent a bottle of perfume that might look odd at customs? Would the agent carry a spare bottle of poison into an operation without first unwrapping it for speedy use? Etc.
Vanessa Beeley tears the BBC to shreds over a forthcoming “documentary” on the White Helmets.
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/504364-bbc-white-helmets-documentary/
Rubbishing a programme she hasn’t seen.
That’s very rational.
If you read the RT link carefully Kempe, you will see that the BBC documentary is on Radio 4. Not on television!
OK, rubbishing a programme she hasn’t HEARD.
Same applies.
If you bothered to read the article Kempe then you would have seen that she has every right to condemn the program, because both she and others who have challenged the official narrative on Syria are being cast as conspiracy theorists. Here’s a clip from what the former UK ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford, said in a statement in response:
“The BBC have systematically tried to suppress views on Syria which run counter to the standard one-sided narrative. This programme’s efforts to smear dissenters takes BBC conduct to a new low. By alleging conspiracy theorising where there is only evidence-based reporting and analysis, the BBC is showing its frustration at being unable to stifle truth-telling. The only conspiracy here is whatever coordination has taken place between the BBC and British authorities responsible for failing to achieve regime change in Syria despite throwing many millions of taxpayer money at the effort.”
See this amazing whitewash ‘long read’ in the Guardian today:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/oct/27/syria-disinformation-war-white-helmets-mayday-rescue-james-le-mesurier