Today is the grand opening of the Salisbury Festival of Russophobia, otherwise known as the Public Inquiry into the death of Dawn Sturgess, an unfortunate victim of imperialist spy games.
Do not be fooled. This is not in any sense a genuine public inquiry, supposed to get at the truth. This is an inquiry like the Hutton Inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly, designed entirely to conceal the truth and further the official narrative.
In the Kelly case, the official narrative was that one of the world’s leading experts in chemical weapons, with access to instant-action neurotoxins, decided to kill himself after leaking that Iraq had no WMD. He chose to do so by cutting his wrist veins with a rusty penknife and waiting for a slow and painful death in the woods.
The ambulance crew who picked Kelly up testified that there was very little blood and they did not think that he could have bled out, but the Inquiry considered there was little blood because it must have “soaked into the soil”. Nobody thought to dig up the soil and check.
In the Dawn Sturgess case, we are supposed to believe that two top Russian agents sent to kill Sergei Skripal chose a “novichok” nerve agent as the manner of death. In broad daylight they painted this on the front door of his house, in full view of the neighbours and passers-by on the packed housing estate and without any protective equipment, despite the fact that a tiny droplet on your skin could kill you.
The agents then went for a walk in Salisbury town centre, looked in the window of an antique shop, and put the perfume bottle containing the novichok back in its packet including somehow resealing the cellophane wrapping. They then placed the “perfume” in a charity bin.
They then made their getaway on the notoriously unreliable Sunday train service.
The Skripals came back home, and both touched the door handle. Despite the novichok being instant-acting and extremely deadly, they then went out for lunch and ate a full meal and drank wine and had a high old time for three hours, being joined and photographed by their MI6 handler Pablo Miller (whose existence is D-noticed).
After their meal, the novichok finally took effect and they both collapsed on a park bench. Despite the fact that they were different ages, sexes and weights and presumably contacted differing amounts of novichok, they both collapsed at just the same moment, about three hours after contact, so neither of them was able to call for help.
But luckily the very first person to come across them on the park bench was, completely by coincidence, the Chief Nurse of the British Army, who just happened to be passing. They went to hospital and were saved and did not die after all.
A policeman sent to their house touched the door handle and also got novichok poisoning, and he later got ill and was hospitalised, but did not die either. He had returned to his own home and later it was found that he had got novichok all over the light switches and door handles there, but by great fortune his family, who continued to live in this house, did not get ill from it.
The official explanation of this is that it was “a miracle”.
Meanwhile, the “perfume” sat in the charity bin. It sat there for months and months, despite the fact that it was emptied regularly and despite the fact that Charlie Rowley was one of a number of people who also regularly stole from that bin.
Somehow both the bin’s official and unofficial emptiers continually missed the perfume bottle, again and again and again. Finally, several months later, the perfume bottle’s mysterious invisibility cloak failed and Charlie Rowley saw it.
He gave it to his girlfriend Dawn Sturgess, who put some perfume on and died. Charlie Rowley got ill but did not die. He was later able to tell the press inconvenient facts, like the cellophane on the perfume was fully sealed and that he took stuff from that bin fairly often.
When Rowley and Sturgess were taken to hospital, the police descended and sealed off the house and made a massive terrorism theatre of searching it, that went on for days. They were searching for a small container of liquid.
Finally, after days and days of 24/7 painstaking combing through the house by England’s finest, somebody spotted a perfume bottle sitting in plain sight on the kitchen counter, and the novichok was found!
Presumably the perfume’s invisibility cloak had spluttered into life again for a few days before fizzling out.
That really is the official story. Yes, it really is. You are not supposed to notice the massive glaring holes in it. If you want to check up on all the sources and links, here is one I made earlier.
I had intended to attend the inquiry in person. Even the most incompetent lawyer would be able to demolish this ridiculous official narrative with great ease. But then I realised that the entire Inquiry is structured to prevent that happening.
Nobody is going to ask difficult questions. The one person who could is the lawyer representing the family of Dawn Sturgess, but her family have been propagandised into total adherence to the official line, presumably by a combination of mainstream media and official hand-holding.
Sturgess’s family have understandably become focused on hatred for the Russians, whom they have been told killed their daughter. The line their KC is instructed to pursue is to query why the state was not more effective in protecting their daughter from those evil Russians.
The other “core participants” – the council, police and health authorities – will be back-covering on similar lines, and we can be pretty sure the Inquiry will conclude with plaudits all round about how well everybody pulled against the evil Ruski menace, and a few “lessons learned” saws.
The role of the “public” is to witness the show inquiry. Nobody else gets to ask a question. “Intelligence” material provided by the security services will not be made public. The Inquiry has already been told this morning by the British Government representative that this is essential to assure future informers of confidentiality.
The scene has been set by an utterly ludicrous attempt to stir up Russophobia by MI5. In the last week the Head of MI5 has solemnly assured us that Russia is attempting to launch chaos on the streets of the UK, and we are told by security service sources that the evil Ruskis plan to disrupt UK ambulances.
I am pretty sure Putin also has an evil plan to eat your grandmother.
Never Trust A Man Who Dyes His Hair
Dawn Sturgess died six miles from the official UK govt facility that manufactures novichok “for test purposes” – and incidentally where David Kelly once worked. Her death reinforced the official Salisbury narrative at a time when public scepticism was growing.
I am pretty sure poor Dawn, who had fallen on hard times and was just the kind of person the Establishment views as dispensable, was a victim of state violence.
I am quite certain that if so, it was not the Russians.
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OK so if it wasn’t the Russians who was it and why? I’ve yet to see anyone put together a plausible alternative narrative that pulls all the loose ends together.
A double agent might have either side wanting to do harm to them isn’t that rather obvious? Or just a simple false flag. In either case an insult to our intelligence (in both senses).
OK so what were the two GKU agents doing on their two trips to Salisbury and if the Novichok came from Porton Down six miles away why not take the unused portion back there? How could anyone be certain that the perfume bottle would be found and used and not just sent to landfill along with the rest of the contents of the bin?
Why do you think there was any nerve agent in the perfume bottle, because the UK secret service told you? I have a nice bridge I think you’ll want to buy
So what did kill Dawn Sturgess and how was it administered?
As Tony doesn’t seem to have replied to your questions, Pears: If I had to guess, I’d say probably a mixture of heroin & fentanyl* administered by hypodermic syringe, and ethanol administered per os.
* Plenty of that around in mid-2017. Pay attention to what young Ceri tells you at 3:35:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFU25HE7p9g
(Lovely girl she was – most of the time – genuinely would have done anything for anyone. The production company’s low-rent cameras also don’t do her justice.)
” If I had to guess ” Oh so you don’t know, no evidence to back that up?
If novichok wasn’t involved why is that fact that Dawn “died six miles from the official UK govt facility that manufactures novichok “for test purposes” ” at all relevant? Why did tests carried out as part of the post mortem find novichok and not heroin/fentanyl?
Thanks for your reply, Pears. Of course I don’t know for sure, because I don’t work at a senior level in the UK security services. Where did I say the fact that she died six miles from Porton Down was relevant? That’s right, I didn’t. Anyway, didn’t she officially die in Salisbury? Who’s to say that the post-mortem tests (if there were any) didn’t find heroin/fentanyl, but it just wasn’t recorded as such?
Apologies, should have put the following warning on the previous comment:
CAUTION: Contains bad language and themes of a sexual nature.
(Sorry about that – my head’s full of 2D COSY & HMBC spectra and I can’t think straight).
Charlie Rowley was capable of stealing thousands of pounds from his disabled brother, Pears – whereas there are thousands of smackheads that won’t take a penny from friends & family. I’m sure he’s quite capable of lying ‘for Britain’ when required, especially if he’s being coerced. I wouldn’t trust a word he says.
So MI5 put their trust in an unreliable ‘smackhead’ and let him live did they?
Thanks for your reply, Pears. In general, the security services don’t want to kill anyone they don’t have to. Charlie Rowley is fairly reliable: he a selfish **** who doesn’t want to to die, like most people – he’s unlikely to have any lofty ideals or sense of the ‘greater good’. He’s also probably partially responsible for Dawn Sturgess’s death. Almost everything he wants can be provided by the security services for free, in exchange for his co-operation. However, if he doesn’t co-operate – well, as a (ex?)-smackhead, he’ll probably have some idea what torture’s like.
I wonder if the number of inconsistencies Is a feature, not a bug.
If there were one or two, they would be easy to focus on, and might have pierced MSM consciousness, but there are so many it induces a brain fog and a lot of journalists would stay away, due to the difficulty of simplifying the story to a word count.
That and the fact most journalists know which stories to write to progress their careers (and lives) – especially after all Julian Assange and family went through…
Yes, a feature. This happened at a time when Jeremy Corbyn looked likely to be the next PM, and the establishment was worried. The “Russian Hat” Newsnight was broadcast a few days earlier. They wanted him to call out the inconsistencies, followed by a media pile-on, “Traitor” etc.
Failed so they tried again, adding more absurdites, with Dawn Sturgess. Still failed.
How could anyone be certain that the perfume bottle would be found and used and not just sent to landfill along with the rest of the contents of the bin?
Probably because it was a charity bin not a trash bin?
No it was a rubbish bin.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/salisbury-poisoning-latest-charlie-rowley-amesbury-novichok-spy-bins-a8475071.html
Note though that Rowley only says he thought that’s where he found the bottle, he’d previously told police he’d found it in Victoria Park, Salisbury. Police closed the park off and carried out a fingertip search.
If nothing else it proves that Rowley is unreliable as a witness.
It’s not hard to figure out: the UK government wanted to isolate Russia on the international stage to prepare the ground for hostilities, and they needed a convenient excuse to sabotage diplomatic relations.
They set a trap by getting Sergei Skripal to contact the FSB to arrange a secret rendevouz and document exchange in Salisbury. The FSB deployed experienced secret agents Anatoliy Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin – under their favoured pseudonyms “Alexander Petrov” and “Ruslan Boshirov” – to meet up with Skripal.
But MI6 was merely seeking circumstantial evidence to ensnare some Russian operatives in an international spy scandal. The government wove the details of the Petrov and Boshirov visit into a ridiculous Bond-esque narrative that they were attempting to kill a defector (à la Litvinenko) with a deadly poison “of a type developed by Russia” – and, coincidentally, manufactured in the UK just up the road from Salisbury (but never mind that … ).
The poisoning of the Skripals took place in the park under the watchful eye of the British Army’s Chief Nurse, who was able to step in and rescue them in the nick of time (just like the Bond movies).
The government had collected the circumstantial evidence they wanted and proceeded to weave it into a sordid spy scandal (which in many ways was internally inconsistent, but never mind that … ) so they could make the serious allegation that Russia was a threat to the international world order. The story made headlines all around the world and prompted many other countries to expel Russian diplomats and cut diplomatic ties with Russia. That, of course, set the stage for escalating international hostilities. The rest is (recent) history.
The long-planned provocation of Russia by NATO via Ukraine couldn’t have happened without it. And look where we are now …
Anyone with good sense who scrutinised the ludicrous story would realise the whole saga was a set up. Peace in our time is now in serous peril.
We have no idea what really happened.
All we know is that the official narrative is nonsense.
We haven’t enough information to put together a plausible alternative. There are times when the only appropriate answer to “What really happened?” is “I don’t know.”
Unfortunately, there’s something in human nature that seems to prefer false answers to a truthful admission of ignorance.
Mossad or its subcontractors. They never miss an opportunity to stir the big pot of shit – and it consolidates the attitude of the UK towards Russia, who, if I recall, is on good relations with Iran.
Skripal was a double agent with a lot of enemies. He served six years in prison in Russia—they could have killed him rather than offering him in a prisoner swap. One theory is MI5 silenced him, they were dining with his handler before falling ill (making him the most obvious suspect). His handler is rumored to have been in business with Christopher Steele and this was the time of the Mueller investigation. Maybe he knew something about the Steele Dossier and wanted to sell his information. The Russians were possibly coming meet Skripal, perhaps to buy intelligence, and MI5 got to him first.
Another theory is he was thinking about moving back to Russia where his wife is buried, possibly the reason for his daughter’s visit. The Russians may have come to provide him with necessary travel documents.
Sergei Skripal’s wife is buried in Salisbury, Eileen.
“OK so if it wasn’t the Russians who was it and why? I’ve yet to see anyone put together a plausible alternative narrative that pulls all the loose ends together.”
You don’t have to know what happened to know what didn’t happen. No-one knows what happened to the crew of the “Mary Celeste”, but everyone, bar a few nutters, knows that they weren’t abducted by aliens from another planet.
The plausible alternative hypothesis was published at http://thesaker.is/the-alternative-skripal-narrative/ – a blog that was mysteriously locked in 2023 and no longer contains the very credible theory that explains many angles, including where the Novichok came from.
Almost the only possible explanation for the existence of an unopened, unused bottle of perfume laced with novichok is that MI6 needed to silence both of the Skripal’s. Why? Because Sergei was about to defect back to Russia. Yulia came here to give him cover.
Why go back to Russia? Many reasons – but now was a good time to do it because Sergei had helped create the Steele Dossier that made Trump look like a blackmailed puppet of the Russian state. Exposing this skullduggery would rehabilitate Sergei in the eyes of the Russian state and people, he’d be a hero.
So MI6 had the bright idea of putting novichok (Russian invention, but the recipe published in the US and fairly simple to make) in a Nina Ricci perfume bottle. They would send it as a birthday present to Yulia Skripal at her father’s house. It was intended to seem like a present from her family or boyfriend. The parcel would perhaps have Russian stamps on it, designed to frame the Russian state when the Skripals were found dead in their house with an open perfume bottle in Yulia’s hands.
Why didn’t Yulia open the perfume?
Because, by an extraordinary bungle, it was her spy father who had first created novichok in the UK in a workshop in the attic at his house at Salisbury. (This explains why the roof of the house had be removed and replaced as reported in SkyNews and the BBC – and is also the only explanation for how the policeman Nick Bailey got himself poisoned).
So Sergei took one look at the unwrapped (but still shrink-wrapped sealed) perfume container and said: “Don’t touch it!”
Sergei took the dispenser for a long walk and put it in a rubbish or charity bin half-way across town. The biggest mystery in any of this is how it took 3 months before it was found by the homeless man and given to his woman friend.
MI6, once they suspected Sergei Skripals loyalty, would have put him on an airport watch list. He would need a passport in a false name to get back to Russia, a UK visa and entry stamp. So the third Russian agent (who Bellingcat told us didn’t show up for the flight back to Moscow) must have intended his seat to be taken by Sergei Skripal.
MI6 knew that Sergei was intending to defect, and they knew how explosive was the Steele dossier expose. Now they had to silence both Sergei and Yulia, otherwise the dossier business would be in the hands of the Russians. Novichok had failed, the other man’s passport was now in Sergei’s possession, MI6 had to act fast to stop the Skripals driving to the airport.
Do we know that the Skipals were knocked out with an opiate (fentanyl) and not a nerve agent? Yes – because the first person on the scene when the Skripals collapsed on their bench was an army nurse, the Chief Nursing Officer of the British Army, Colonel Alison McCourt, accompanied by her teenage daughter, Abigail.
Colonel McCourt had long experience both with Ebola in Sierra Leone and with the danger of chemical weapons during her service in Iraq, where protection against nerve agents was a priority. She knew the enormous precautions required and yet, she encouraged her daughter to rush over to the collapsed Skripals and begin administering first aid to them, something very dangerous if a nerve agent had been used. She later even recommended Abigail for a medal for heroism for her action, which is why it got into the papers.
None of this will come out in the inquiry starting today!
You omitted to mention that before their pub drinks and meal (in two separate locations) they fed bread to ducks in a nearby park – and were joined by children who the Skripals actually handed bread to in order to feed the ducks. Imagine – bread covered in novichok from the hands of the Skripals and no ill effects for either the children or ducks – miraculous.
Isn’t there also the tiny titbit of advice from a “public health or medical official” telling the town’s parents that if their children had come into contact with the deadly compound, that Wet-wipes would be just fine in removing any danger. Oh and just pop their clothing in the Wash. Am sure I heard something like that. Will there be a similar inquiry into the death of Comrade Skripal’s Pets ? Thought not, still sad though.
mackenzie:
To add farce upon farce I read that Melania Trump showed hubby Donald some photographs of dead ducks purportedly from Salisbury and that made him dislike Putin even more.
A bit like Joe’s Dead baby photos.
I kid you not.
You forgot to mention that the cheap east end of London hotel the two would-be assassins stayed in, and apparently raucously entertained women there, was checked and found to contain traces of novichok. Despite this, the hotel owner was not notified, nor were the numerous guests that stayed in the same room there after the assassins, without any of them suffering any symptoms of exposure to such a lethal chemical weapon.
What is so mindboggling about the entire charade, is that most people seem to accept the official story without a hint of a ‘hang on a minute’ credulity about the countless inconvenient truths surrounding the narrative.
That is the single aspect of the story that always stuck in my mind, as I am regularly caught by the lights next to that hotel.
Absolutely insulting to the intelligence.
Yes, one could add the Litvinenko inquiry.
Baroness Harnett was supposed to be chair the inquiry – only to find her huge credibiity (or reliable shill for government, you choose) being more in demand for the Covid Inquiry.
Why would anyone want to harm Skripal and then keep him out of the way for 6 years?
At Orbis Intelligence works a man with not much direct knowledge of Russia but who was apparently the MI6 provider of non-public information confidential to the Chairman of the Litvinenko “Public” inquiry. At Orbis he worked with Pablo Millar. But he is mostly famous for the Chirstopher Steele Dossier, prepared by those working for Hillary Clinton but assigned his name for credibility.
It is very likely that he would have consulted Skripal and very very likely Skripal was aware of how fraudulent the Dossier was.
Essentially MI6 recent operative were directly conspiring with Clinton to rig the US elections.
Pablo Miller was also ‘working’ with Russian oligarch Berezovsky, and his assistant Litvinenko. Looks like poisoning of misterious russian people in UK with misterious russian poisons is closely connected with misterious Pablo Miller.
Btw, there was another misterious death of a russian in UK, if I reember it right, he was found rammed in a suitcase and the inquiry said he suffocated while trying to err.. how to put it in a decent manner?… to sexually please himself.
Gareth Williams was actually an MI5 agent, not a Russian. Somehow he managed to zip himself inside a holdall after he was already dead. Quite the Houdini in fact.
These people are good at that sort of thing, like committing suicide by shooting yourself twice in the head.
Thanks, pasha, sorry for the error. The guy was investigating russian mafia, more exactly, the money-laundering schemes, and I guess it concerned some ex-russian oligarchs in London.
Anyway, his death was reported as a part of big raw of strange deaths in UK, all connected with stolen russian money.
Businessman Nikolai Glushkov, who was critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was found dead(strangled) in New Malden in south-west London, also in March 2018.
The same month – but no ‘deadly nerve agent ‘ so hardly any headlines.
Sometimes what the press show no interest in is the real story. Being Russian and connected to British intelligence seems to be dangerous, to put it mildly.
In the article on his death there’s an interesting comment in the Guardian from Glushkov:
Speaking to the Guardian in 2013, Glushkov said he did not believe Berezovsky took his own life. “I’m definite Boris was killed. I have quite different information from what is being published in the media,” he said.
He noted that a large number of Russian exiles, including Berezovsky and Alexander Litvinenko, had died under mysterious circumstances. “Boris was strangled. Either he did it himself or with the help of someone. [But] I don’t believe it was suicide,” Glushkov said. “Too many deaths [of Russian émigrés] have been happening.”
Great article – our host is always at his best on the Skripal stuff, if you ask me.
Just one thing though: In spite of his job, the late Dr David Kelly wouldn’t have had easy access to powerful neurotoxins, which generally don’t furnish a particularly pleasant death, even if it is usually a quick one. He did, however, have easy access to 29 of his wife’s co-proxamol tablets, which were cited as a contributory factor in his death. I’m not a pathologist but, knowing a bit about opioids, I would say that they were the main cause.
Talking of David Kelly..
“We are now up to a million casualties – Russian and Ukrainian. Does Putin ever, at any point, lie awake at night thinking – ‘hmm, a million people ‘”
– Alastair Campbell (@campbellclaret)
9/10/2024
Thanks for your reply, Reza. Self-awareness has never been one of Campbell’s strong points though, when set against some of his other character flaws, such as having violent psychotic episodes directed against innocuous bystanders on Hampstead Heath when in the company of his long-suffering better half, it’s a minor deficiency.
Read and Learn.
An Inconvenient Death: How the Establishment Covered Up the David Kelly Affair, by Miles Goslett
Thanks for your reply, Stevie. As you may have gathered, I don’t always do what men (or boys) tell me to – especially when I’m busy – so if you would be so kind as to explain, in one or two sentences, why Dr David Kelly didn’t kill himself, it would be appreciated.
See Norman Baker’s book ‘The Strange Death of David Kelly’. I think N.B. (ex-MP) was perfectly aware who did it but it’d be a bit risky to identify them. So he dropped all sorts of hints and left it there.
Thanks for your reply Norman*. Does Norman Baker explain in his book how Kelly’s putative assassins got hold of his wife’s co-proxamol tablets without her noticing?
* I take it you’re not actually Norman Baker. If so, I’m not sure that advertising is allowed on this site – with the exception of our host, obvs:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/books/
Available in all good bookshops, maybe.
Was David Kelly’s wife the only user of co-proxamol in the UK or does she own all the tablets there are?
Also, I believe, Col. Alison McCourt was in town at the opportune time because there was a large NBC exercise being held ‘nearby’. A coincidence that is up there with the Nord Stream event and the USA military presence ‘nearby’.
Also, apparently, Sergei Skripal was still ‘active’ and involved with the Ukranians …
Also, as previously reported, the Skripals cannot attend the ‘inquiry’ because of security concerns, says MI6.
Also, absolutely no evidence whatsoever that the Skripals are still alive – apart from what MI6 tell us.
The Skripals won’t be giving ‘live oral evidence’ which doesn’t rule out a video link; which of course can be denounced as ‘faked’.
Alison McCourt wasn’t the first person to attend the Skripals, her 16 year old daughter Abigail was first to render help. Do you imagine for one second that if Dr McCourt knew in advance that she’d be coming into contact with some noxious substance she’d have brought along her daughter??
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jan/20/novichok-poisoning-victims-sergei-skripal-first-helped-by-teenage-girl
A medical professional she may have been but she didn’t have any kit with her and aside from basic first aid all she could do was call for an ambulance. The hospital didn’t have a clue what they were dealing with and for some time thought the Skripals were suffering from an opioid OD.
maybe they were?… we only have the say so of Britgov. Only scientists from Porton Down would be able to diagnose Novichok; truthfully or falsely not a bog standard A&E consultant in our health system. So what evidence is there that there ever was any Novichok anywhere near the Skipals?..maybe the poor cat got it… as “evidence”… administered by folk in hazmat gear after the Skripals were in hospital. Or not. Poor Dawn could have died a number of ways. Sadly her death seems to have been for theatre.
Test exercise in terror theatre whilst damning Russia. In order to ramp up the case for planned war against Russia. I could see coming a mile off from at least 2014 and I’ve got no crystal ball.
Samples were sent to various independent labs across europe including the Spiez Laboratory in Switzerland. All found novichok.
“All found novichok.”
How do you know? Do you work in all of them? Perhaps it would be more correct to say that all were reported by the UK-press-that-never-lies-to-us to have found “Novichok”. Also, without knowing the chain of custody details, which you don’t, you cannot be certain that the samples weren’t spiked beforehand.
Your faith in the integrity of any lab in Europe chosen by the authorities to receive such evidence is touching.
Pears Morgaine
Porton Down (the ones called in for advice) did not say that the Skripals were poisoned by Novichok.
I am sure they were poisoned with something because the Doctors asked them for an antidote. Thankfully the antidote worked.
Two months later the alleged Novichok was found on the kitchen sink top by the police. After two months.
Considering the still open Perfume Bottle contained enough Novichok to wipe out a small town, none of the searchers reported any symptoms. Does that not strike you as strange?
Okay, so the 2 guys, with bogus identities. Were they just tourists? Were they connected to the events? Any link to Ukraine’s 26 bio weapons labs, referred to on Hunter Biden’s laptop hard drive? What were the Skripals doing living there anyway? Such a great steaming kettle of fish…. One day someone might write a book about it.
Both men positively identified as GRU agents. It’s also interesting, if entirely predictable, the way the biolabs in Ukraine have become bioWEAPONSlabs.
Who has positively identified the two men as GRU agenta? And don’t say Bellingcat, he is funded by western intelligence agencies and will say exactly what they want him to say.
The Ukrainian biolabs were supervised by Metabiota, a key Pentagon contractor. They called them ‘research labs’ and did not hide the fact that they were dealing with bioweapons, only claiming that their motive was protection against bioweapons.
By the way, Biden’s son and John Kerry’s stepson took part in financing these labs, through the company they created, Rosemont Seneca. And this is one of the reasons why the authenticity of Hunter Biden’s laptop was so fiercely denied – it is known from the letters that he introduced Metabiota and Burisma (Ukrainian gas company) for the financing of some “scientific projects” in these labs.
Imo, bioweapons labs is the right definition.
I agree from information that was found on the laptop and subsequent paper trail. All of which you no longer hear about.
Yes. Here’s just one of the many links quoting chapter and verse on Russia’s findings: https://sputnikglobe.com/20230413/chilling-and-frightening-us-bioweapons-in-ukraine-pose-massive-risks-1109463019.html
There are US biolabs dotted all over the globe. Curiously, nearly all of them are within sneezing distance of Russia or China. Just a coincidence of course.
I hope no coincidence happens to Bulgarian journalist and TV host Dilyana Gaytanzhieva, who investigated US biolabs in Georgia and Ukraine.
https://dilyana.bg/documents-expose-us-biological-experiments-on-allied-soldiers-in-ukraine-and-georgia/
When I saved some web-pages about biolabs to my Google Disk, I immediately got a notification from Google!!! about unproper content on my disk!!! Have you ever even heard about such warnings in your life? I tell you, US bioweapon labs is something truly closely monitored info.
The biolabs in Ukraine are under the supervision of the US’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency. If you look up that agency’s missions, there cannot be much doubt that those labs are bioweapons labs.
Great work…quite simply invaluable. Also, thank you for your service to your country. I’m sure you got a certificate or something when you left government service 🤔
I hope your article draws the enemies of the UK out of the woodwork. When they are caught, they should find even Belmarsh more comfortable than the Arctic Circle, proof of the comparative benevolence of British justice compared to Russian (Proof: Assange lived, Navalny died). Even Russian agents know that there is more freedom in the UK, a good reason for them to defect (like Oleg Gordievsky).
Paul Mason after liquid lunch.
As the US promoted war in Ukraine enters the end game with Russia destroying the Ukrainian army (sadly, these are people who should have been working for the prosperity of the country and conceiving the next generation) we have to ramp up the story of the evil Putin. I agree on all your points of absurdity in the narrative. Motive is always the question to consider. I think it was the big sporting event coming up in Russia. For me that was a reason Putin would not do anything to cause an image problem to tarnish the event, but those wanting to undermine Russia would have reason to do so. My guess is that those Russian sightseers were of course intelligence agents and had come to meet with Skripal (that would be in the period when the Skripals were in some unknown location). Maybe that was a setup by the UK intelligence services just for this plot. They went to see where Skripal lived out of simple human curiosity (is he living nicer than us?). I don’t know if you are right about Dawn Sturgess but I cannot find an explanation for what happened though I have come to realise that we do not matter one bit to ‘our’ government.
Sergei WAS a double agent. Prosecuted, served time and then released by Russia. Living in Salisbury (~4 miles from Porton Down), looked after by his MI6 minder, Pablo Miller. Involved with Ukraine. Probably also still working with/for Russia. The visiting Russians may have been dropping off/picking up intelligence from Sergei. The Skripals have now gone.
Cui Bono ?
How often do you see intelligence agents going to TV to be interviewed about the poisoning they allegedly commited in a foreign country? Those 2 guys created such a wave of humor, they became memes, still living here and there in RU-net.
I think the identity part is likely true. They certainly weren’t Salisbury tourists in miserable early March. They looked like two nervous rabbits in the interview, very uncomfortable.
Whoever put them on TV, probably didn’t realise the extent to which they’d been set up, if that’s what happened? The delayed identification was always going to reinforce the narrative, and make it seem like a slam dunk.
Even if the Novichok ‘nerve agent’ part is rubbish, aimed at winning then wavering European states’ support for sanctions and expulsions to further isolate Russia, those two were likely Russian intelligence officers. They were either duped into coming of their own volition; or came on the promise of intelligence exchange; or, least likely of all, came to smear some novichok on a door in the hope Sergei Skripal might touch it.
Yes indeed. For “crack agents” they were oddly inept. Sprayed novichok around their hotel room and somehow survived, along with all the other hotel staff, wandered openly around Salisbury just like real tourists, committed evil deeds so cleverly concealed that not all the resources of the UK security services have been able to discover them, and then went back home and were interviewed on tv. Damn, those evil Rooskies are cunning.
pasha
You didn’t really think they’d go public, accusing two random Russians, who in turn could easily provide irrefutable proof they had other careers, professions and weren’t in fact intel operatives?
Credit western agencies with a bit more shrewdness than that. Even if parts of this ‘novichok’ story are false, I knew as soon as the images went public they’d be who western authorities said they were. If so easily disproved, it’d make the claims look ridiculous.
Ha! Novichok in their hotel room!
Navalny claimed that FSB novichoked his underpants! Still he survived.
Either it was some other sort of dirt in his underpants, or, novichok isn’t that deadly as some claim it is.
I had a dream, that Sergei was a man with two faces, one looking eastwards dealing dangerous chemicals with dangerous men who wanted to smear and accuse the son of a Syrian president with war crimes.
Another face was looking to the West, expectingly wanting to be normal living in a place many policemen felt was secure.
Commit the day when two mean men from the east were let into the ex Grand colonial empire to visit him, not knowing that they are going to be used in a plot to smear Russia’s president directly, whilst playing a main part in a plot to kill Sergei and his daughter.
That we had made the poison ourself, that apparently was smeared on to Sergei’s door handle was not to be known, or seen by any of the police persons living in the neighbourhood, just when they were all at work, busy policing Wiltshire.
As it was an experimental art novelchok: it did not creep through their skin until they ate a pizza with an agent 3 hours later. He could not possibly millered the pizzas by sleight of hand and disposed of the art novelchok into the river.
The poor ducks got it, they had it coming anyway during the next duck shoot in the autumn.
At this time I woke up to the sound of “wake up, here is your tea”, stretched, and forgot all about this ludicrous mafia 5/6 movie.
Maybe there was a sequel to follow, who knows?
And, of course, when I posted this to Facebook it was immediately censored as being “spam”.
Unfortunately, State propaganda on practically all media outlets ensures that the attempt will be successful.
You own comment is evidence that the attempt is not universally successful.
If the credulous MSM want to believe this farce then that’s up to them. Even a five year old would ask more questions than they will/do.
But does anyone know when Dawn’s Inquest was held – where and what were the results of her autopsy?
Bear in mind Dawn was cremated. No Inquest or Autopsy means they don’t know what she died of. Despite what is being issued forth by the Patriotic unquestioning media.
Anyone remember the reaction to Corbyn’s questions in parliament? There were near audible gasps that a Member of the House could doubt the
word of the Spooks.
My advice to anyone is: always do. For proof look at the current Israeli attack on Gaza. If they can defend that then Salisbury (and Julia and Sergei Skripal) are relatively minor matters.
Unless you give Putin one in the eye of course.
I think there was no actual Inquest. It was shelved to make way for this absurd Inquiry.
Crispa
As far as I know Dawn never had an Inquest. It was delayed and delayed.
IF anyone has the date and results of the Inquest/Autopsy, then please point me in the right direction.
“Presumably the perfume’s invisibility cloak had spluttered into life again for a few days before fizzling out.”
Ha, ha Craig brilliant – the establishment narrative is preposterous – I pity the Hubble road and Denison boys and girls in here on trying to defend such nonsense.
Thank heavens they found the novichok on the door knob after three weeks.
Thank God it was only novichok, if those godless commies had used covid we would have been really fooked.
this is a good write up of the true facts, but of course the truth will never come out. well done Craig
A properly constituted inquiry would examine the details of the report from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. To date, the only access we have had to this is the Executive Summary which states that Novichok was present in the sample of the Skripal’s blood.
Note: there is no chain of custody for the blood samples. They were presumably taken in Salisbury hospital by persons unknown at a time unknown and transported by means unknown before arrival at the OftPoCW laboratory.
The full report was however copied to governments concerned. Sergey Lavrov maintains that there is a mass-spectrometer trace in the report that identifies the American, non-lethal, chemical weapon BZ as being present. BZ is what you may think of as LSD in aerosol form. The concept was to temporarily incapacitate soldiers in the field by inducing delirium.
The repost to this assertion from the British Foreign Office was that BZ is mentioned in the annexes of the full report, but only because BZ was used as a “spike sample”. A spike sample is a prepared chemical compound of known composition and concentration that is run through the mass-spectrometer before and after the actual material being tested (field sample) to determine whether the spectrometer is functioning correctly.
A spike sample would normally be a close relative of the field sample in terms of chemical composition. Novichok is I believe in the organophosphate family as is VX. Fucking about preparing a spike sample of these compounds may be problematic from a safety perspective, but a basic, garden pesticide could be workable. Is BZ a suitable compound for creating a spike sample for testing Novichok? I doubt it.
All of this can be cleared up by releasing the full report. If the BZ is purely present in a stand-alone spike sample, Sergey Lavrov’s concerns are void. If the BZ appears as a peak on the spectrometer trace of the Skripal’s blood together with Novichok, the inference is that the Skripals were dosed with BZ and the Novichok was added later as faux, incriminating evidence.
If the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is called to provide expert testimony, perhaps this would be in the person of its Chef de mission, Bob Fairweather. Fairweather is an ex British “diplomat” in the same way Rory Stewart was a “diplomat”.
An aside, if Novichok is such a deadly agent, why was Kim Jong-un’s half brother assassinated in that Thailand airport using supposedly much less lethal VX?
The OPCW attended Salisbury Hospital and collected the samples themselves.
https://www.opcw.org/sites/default/files/documents/S_series/2018/en/s-1612-2018_e___1_.pdf
If you remember precursors to BZ were added to check the accuracy of the labs that did the testing.
“The OPCW attended Salisbury Hospital and collected the samples themselves.”
The operative word being “collected”, not “took”. There’s many a slip between cup and sample phial.
Absolute poppycock, you would never contaminate a sample by putting a “marker” in it. Besides that isn’t what the spokesperson for the Foreign Office said about Lavrov’s observation about BZ. The Foreign Office spokesperson said that the BZ was mentioned in the report only as a spike sample (they didn’t use the term spike but that was the clear implication).
The OPCW head also had to U-turn after suggesting an amount used that would’ve been enough to insta kill a herd of elephants.
Found it : https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5692791/Chemical-weapons-expert-u-turn-statement-half-cup-Novichok-used-poison-Skirpals.html
The head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Ahmet Uzumcu, had said 100g of Novichok was used, indicating it was deliberately applied as a weapon.
I also remember Newsnight saying that medical staff didn’t know what was wrong with the Skripals for hours. But despite this, and the deadly nerve agent, in Yulia’s words they recovered with no harm done.
Sadly, there’s been enough that’s come out since, about the threats, bullying and intimidation of teams at the OPCW to call into question its impartiality, its findings and indeed its whole purpose. If it’s no longer seen as strictly scientifically objective and impartial, who will value it?
The US and UK were using it, as we do the UN, in furtherance of foreign policy objectives. Undermining its credibility like that, was so myopic. These international bodies may not be perfect, but they are all we’ve got.
Goose
They originally thought that the Skripals had suffered from an Opioid Overdose.
That’s why the Salisbury Doctors were puzzled. They consulted (or were contacted) by experts at Porton Down.
Whatever advice the boffins gave them – it worked.
That mysterious invisibility cloak the perfume bottle was wearing for months in the charity bin, and then on the kitchen counter of a thoroughly searched house, seems to have been donned for the past year by RAF Akotiri, sprawling logistical hub for the Gaza Genocide. It has simply disappeared from sight and existence as far as Britain’s media is concerned.
There were plenty of headlines at the time, saying the bottle splintered into pieces, cutting the hand of Dawn’s partner, Charlie Rowley.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/07/21/novichok-victim-charlie-rowley-became-contaminated-breaking/
And yet… the bottle allegedly recovered from Charlie Rowley’s address is in good condition see here: https://news.sky.com/story/novichok-in-perfume-bottle-that-killed-dawn-sturgess-was-enough-to-kill-thousands-inquiry-hears-13233441
I know we’ve got an incurious press, but this is on another level. When it takes all of 30 seconds to find this contradictory evidence, without even trying.
This ‘X’ post seems to sum up the silliness :
https://x.com/potifar66/status/979521884856471552
Police went in and out of #Skripal door for 3 weeks, before they found the “nerve agent” – at the door.
That’s really interesting . Any questions?
Initially, it was stated that Sergei was born in Kyiv. Ukraine – giving ample motive for hating the Russians and being willing to frame them, but that information seems to have been purged from the web.
One of the two Russians is allegedly a decorated ex-military vet.
Sergei was living at that address under his real name with no CCTV. He regularly frequented a local pub. Which begs the question: wouldn’t two decorated ex-military GRU agents have found it easier to confront him at night outside the pub if they intended to do him harm, rather than walking up the street in broad daylight to paint some gloopy stuff on a door in the hope he might touch it?
The most curious aspect to this involves the timeline and the very narrow window from the pair’s arrival in Salisbury – the walk to reach the house on foot, and then the sighting of his vehicle. Trump called it ‘Spy games’ when quizzed on the matter, and it does look like an elaborate plot to frame Russia of the sort you’d get in a spy novel.
And another thing.
Given that the spooks know who is arriving in the UK at any time (eg. Murray, Medhurst, etc.), one can assume that they knew the russians had entered the country, who they were and potentially where they were going. So we can also assume they were ‘tailed’, such that MI6 knew, and knows, what their every move was. Maybe, we can also assume that Sergei had regular contacts with russians !
`Curiouser and curiouser!’ cried Alice.
This is all starting to feel very Harry Potterish… The Ministry? Invisibility cloaks? Averacadavera and Expelliarmus? I guess we are just the muggles. Netty is The Dark Lord. Is Putin Harry Potter? Not with all his rapist troll army. And where is Hermione when you need her? Brains and a good heart would be a refreshing change. Darya Dugova was good once. And Ahed Tamimi has the hair. No. Sadly this is not fiction and the end of the story is still in doubt. Has Yulia spoken to her beloved grandmother? That would mean a lot.
One extra point. we are told the house was lived in by a highly monitored individual and owned by the Government and had NO CCTV, The nearest camera to capture the 2 Russians was 400 yards away and NONE of his neighbours had CCTV
The main initial reason for skepticism and cynicism, was the fact the US and UK were desperate to rally European support for sanctions and diplomatic expulsions at that time; especially among more Russia friendly states with otherwise good diplomatic relations – sanctions and expulsions still in operation today.
It all seemed a little bit too useful in the furtherance of that geopolitical goal to isolate Russia. That initial impact had worn off though, the Skripals survived.. and Russia were slowly mending European relations, then came the perfume bottle incident, reviving the scandal.
I still don’t understand why they were so eager to isolate Russia. If they regard China as the prime threat, why drive Russia into alliance with China?
Because of how the people in power in the West view their adversaries. China and Russia aren’t unified in ideology.
Russia is seen as a personalistic dictatorship, North Korea is a personalistic-dynastic dictatorship, while China is viewed as an authoritarian single-party system; Iran is an Islamic theocratic oligarchy, trending in the direction of becoming a military junta regime.
The belief for a long time at the highest levels of state, was that Russia was the most easy to peel away as a personalistic dictatorship; it was believed that if Putin fell there was nothing preventing Russia reintegrating with the US-led Western liberal order.
Charlie Rowley also had some menial job at said Govt experimental germ warfare lab & weapons factory… presumably as a guinea pig…It was a decrepit run down place with seriously corroded tins of who knows what lying around everywhere outside some of the older buildings when the BBC helpfully produced a puff propaganda doc called Inside Porton Down. Nobody even to tidy up.. maybe cos Charlie was incapacitated by them. Miraculously it got bunged loadsa money for new everything after the so called Skripal Affair. Don’t forget this was also the alleged site of some invented Summer Isles radicals supposedly who after digging up a bit of the Gruinard soil then lobbed it out of the window of a moving train… over the fence and into the grounds of toxic central. John Buchan would have been proud of that plot. Or Enid Blyton on the Skripal Affair.
Although I don’t believe that the West Coast mainline from Scotland has ever gone through Wiltshire… ever… Scotland just isn’t that connected. Gruinard is still deadly. The Skripal’s house was 12 miles from Porton Down too…. Russia is far away. A funny way to encourage good attendance at the footie and some new trade and investment. But then… Enid Blyton: Nurse Novichok of the British Army who was supremely trained to deal with such things. And all before tea with the vicar.
Another good book on the topic:
“The secret history of chemical and biological warfare.”
A Higher Form of Killing, by Robert Harris, Jeremy Paxman.
Ephraim Katzir, president of Israel in the 1980s, who accidentally let slip that Israel already had nuclear weapons then, was previously a physical chemist in charge of developing biological warfare, which included a massive flame thrower weapon (which appears to have been used against the festival goers a year ago) and in 1948 created together with his brother Aharon, a gas that would blind people, and he was proud they could produce 20 kilos a day. It didn’t kill people, it just blinded them. Gas has been used against UN forces this week, which has penetrated their gas masks.
How can we include Israel in Europe? It just does not keep to the rules.
What rules are they then ?
The hegemons ‘rule based order’ are quite happy to use poison gas, biological weapons, depleted uranium shells, cluster munitions, White phosphorus munitions. I’d say Israel fits right in with this sorry, sick, shitshow.
… I used to think Fantasy Island was shot in The Bahamas…
Reply @ Pears Morgaine
A Feasible theory I have heard is: Sergei was getting home sick and put out a flare to the Russians that he wanted to re-defect, but he needed to give Russian Intel some thing in return. (There is another Theory about what that could be something to do with outing Christopher Steele and his Dossier). The two Russians were sent to Sailsbury but not to kill, rather make covert contact, perhaps bring documents e.g. a passport.
Moscow however screwed up and Uk Intel were alerted. After some kind of drop which may or may not have been successful, MI5 rolled the Skripals up. As a cover story they neutralised them with a high dose of some kind of Opiate, whisked them to hospital, released them into security services custody then interrogated them before disposing of them both. (Neither Sergei who called his mum every day nor Yulia who was engaged in Russia were ever heard from again by anybody, even indirectly)
How Rowley & Sturgess got involved is uncertain but a theory is they were picked as known addict low lifes in order to bolster the story which was getting pretty weak.
This narrative fits the known facts far better than the official story.
No actual Lab ever identified the substance definitively. Porton Down merely said it was a substance of the same type as Novichok and the scientists refused to be any more specific. The OPCW sent samples, transferred by UK Security services to a Swiss lab who actually only stated that the substance was confirmed as what the UK authorities had indicated. What the UK had indicated however was never revealed. All that fed into the papers as Novichok confirmed by Porton Down and OPCW!!
The Russians actually hacked into the Swiss lab and it was Lavrov who revealed that an opiate had in fact been detected. The OPCW responded with: That an opioid had been added as a blind control sample as procedure.
Yes, Novichok as I understand it was a generic term for the potential nerve agents being experimented with by the Soviets in the 1970s and it does not refer to any specific substance. Yet the term is used in the Inquiry as if there ever was such a thing without what it actually is chemically ever being disclosed. As far as I can see it has never been established that what struck down the Skripals was precisely the same as that which killed poor Dawn Sturgess or for that matter later was used against Navalny – “novichok” is just propaganda.
The inventor of Novichok lives near New York. Did you see the television news interview? He came to his high metal gates to be interviewed and was quite plainly delighted with his 15 minutes of fame. He was very proud of his creation….
In the opening statement the lawyer called O’Conner (very apt) says that “the Skipals…four month earlier … suffered the symptoms of Novichok” . Surely a nerve agent would cause damage and not simply “symptoms” so, they at least, were not likely exposed to…something only the UK manufactures, as the UK didnt sign the historic non-proliferation agreement that Russia signed.
Doesn’t “novichok” just mean “new stuff” in Russian?
I think it’s “newbie”.
That could be a condition of their ‘freedom’. Akin to an NDA they’ve signed: new lives; new identities. I don’t personally think they’ll have been harmed as some believe, not if they cooperated in some convoluted plot. For how would agencies recruit or coop others were that the case?
The Yulia phone call home was pretty weird. The Guardian and other so-called serious broadsheet newspapers, remember, were still busy carrying spoonfed stories that same week about how they had it on good authority, that a still comatose Sergei had a less than 1-2% chance of making a full recovery. This, in the same week the Yulia phone call emerged on Russian TV; a call in which a bored Yulia stated, we’re both fine and waiting for this whole ordeal to be over, no lasting harm done to either of us.
This is a great aptly titled summary of these farcical proceedings.
BBC’s early first day “live news” rather sets the scene for the useless propagandist nature of the media coverage to follow.
John Helmer over at Dances with Bears will I think be following the case very closely and in critical detail. Check out his blog over the next few weeks on https://johnhelmer.net
Just came across this, posted about twenty minutes ago:
In the last week, Mr Skripal provided a further witness statement to the inquiry, in which he said “it is not honourable to kill people who have been exchanged and the attack on Yulia and me was an absolute shock”, the inquiry was told.
He added in the statement read by Mr O’Connor: “I had received a presidential pardon and was a free man with no convictions under Russian law.
“They could have killed me easily if they wanted to when I was in prison.”
Mr Skripal also said that, after leaving Russia, he lived “quite a normal life”, but he thought returning to Russia would be “dangerous”.
He said President Putin “must have at least given permission for the attack”.
Mr Skripal said: “I believe Putin makes all important decisions himself. I therefore think he must have at least given permission for the attack on Yulia and me.
“Any GRU (Russian Federation) commander taking a decision like this without Putin’s permission would have been severely punished.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy4dklyddkko
As I said at the time (or at some point in the weeks afterwards), the script-writers of this movie realised early on that it would be much more of a box-office hit with the public if there was also a youngish woman involved and a heroic cop that were poisoned as well, rather than just Skripal himself being poisoned. And like all good fairytales it ended well, and everyone lived happily ever-after. Including the pets!
What I could never understand is why DS Nick Bailey and his two colleagues who went to the house on the Sunday night didn’t think to take the pets with them. Really, REALLY doesn’t make sense. If you include the pets in the story it’s even MORE absurd than it already is!
Julia skripal is an important part of the narrative for sure. She had worked at the US embassy in Moscow but was employed as a humble school secretary shortly before the alleged poisoning. Which is when I briefly encountered her in North Moscow. The area she lived in is well known as a area where GRU and FSB families are allocated apart.ments. However no one who spoke to her in this employment considered her anything other than what she appeared to be.
Julia, s visits to her father would be well known to both countries and her luggage scrutinised accordingly. I suspect her visit was used perhaps as a decoy or possibly to add emotional colour to the narrative. If you remove Julia from the story it loses impact. Double agent bumped off is not much of news story.
God, it gets so convoluted trying to dismantle the lies and falsehoods and machinations of the PTB! So at the time – as of him allegedly having been poisoned as well – we were led to believe that DS Nick Bailey was one of the first on the scene, and selflessly risked his own life. But as we were to learn much later, he WASN’T one of the first people to go to the Skripal’s aid, and didn’t turn up to the scene until after they had both been taken to hospital. And the vast majority of the MSM ommitted to mention that he went to Sergei Skripal’s house on the Sunday night (with a couple of colleagues). And although none of the MSM were explicitly saying it, just about everyone was left thinking initially that the Skripal’s were contaminated whilst they were sitting on the bench. So – and this is my point – by saying that Bailey was one of the first to go to their aid AND that he himself turned out to have been poisoned, just reinforced the belief that the Skripals had the nerve agent* sprayed on them whilst they were sitting on the bench. And the reason that most of the MSM ommitted to mention that he went to the house on the Sunday night, is because many people would have realised that THAT is where he was obviously poisoned AND, of course, where the Skripal’s must have been poisoned.
*It was initially being described as an unknown substance, and then at some point it then became a ‘nerve agent’, and eventually, after about two weeks, we’re being told it’s Novichok.
I don’t know if it came out beforehand, but in the BBC documentary film the following year they HAD to stick to the facts, and so we learnt that Bailey didn’t arrive in The Maltings until much later, and well after the Skripal’s had been taken to hospital. The following is from the end of an FT article posted on March 19th, 2018, that I just came across:
By the end of last week, the officials said they had contacted 131 people who might have come into contact with the substance.
But only three people remain in a serious or critical condition; the Skripals and Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey, who was one of the first to attend to the Russian and his daughter. DS Bailey is also known to have gone to Mr Skripal’s house, suggesting he may have been exposed to the poison there.
Two other officers, PC Alex Way and PC Alex Collins, also attended to the Skripals on the bench at the Maltings but do not appear to have had any health issues.
https://www.ft.com/content/10d8a266-2b99-11e8-9b4b-bc4b9f08f381
Not that I believe any of it, but one has to ‘work’ with the official narrative so as to dismantle it, and point out all the disparaties etc.
I recall from somewhere that it was reported that DS Bailey wasn’t normal plod but was part of a special diplomatic protection unit. Don’t know if it’s true or relevant.
Whilst Skripal was alive he had value as a bargaining counter. He and three others were released in exchange for ten Russian agents captured in the US.
We don’t know what he, or his daughter, might’ve been up to since taking up residence in UK.
One other curious fact to be adduced. The house where the Skripals lived was deemed to be so deadly dangerous that nobody was allowed to enter for weeks, so their pet cat died of dehydration or starvation. Finally, when the “investigation” was complete, the house was still so dangerous that it was demolished from foundation to rafter, and the bricks, timbers etc. carted off to an undisclosed location.
No Pasha, they were in and out of the house on a number of occasions, but most of the MSM omitted to mention the fact. And as we know, DS Nick Bailey went to the house on the Sunday night with a couple of colleagues (and gained access), and if that’s true, then it’s inconceivable that they wouldn’t have taken the pets with them. Anyway, the Sun posted the following article on March 17th, 2018:
Russian spy Sergei Skripal’s pet cat and guinea pigs are taken away for tests
POISONED Sergei Skripal’s cat and two guinea pigs have been taken away for tests, say sources.
A source close to the family said: “Nobody has seen the poor pets since the poisoning.
“I understand the cat and the guinea pigs were removed from the house and taken away to be assessed.”
Vet Howard Taylor, 56, said: “We phoned the police on day one to offer to help if they needed it.
“I thought it unlikely the police would have gone to the house and not done anything.”
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5833121/russian-sergei-skripals-pet-cat/
I entirely concur with those who have said that the official narrative is preposterously absurd.
If the Russian State had wanted to snuff Skripal, they had six years of his imprisonment in Russia to do so. Trivially simple to arrange for him to fall out of an upper window or fall down a staircase or for a fellow prisoner to stab him or for him to hang himself from his bedpost with a pillowcase. That sort of thing.
Prisoner exchanges, or what the tabloids like to call ‘spy swaps’, have been going on for three quarters of a century or so because they are mutually beneficial. There is no precedent of either side murdering a released prisoner after such an exchange. The entire exchange system would collapse, much to the disbenefit for both sides if either side did such a thing.
So, having established what did not happen, there remains the pertinent question of what did.
Let’s work from the known to the unknown. We know that Skripal had let it be known that he was fed up with living in a gilded birdcage in the West and that he craved a return to his Rodina before his ailing mother died. Of course his SIS handler Pablo Miller was aware and of course Pablo would instantly have alerted his superiors to this very grave threat.
The entire intelligence community would have shat bricks at such a prospect occurring.
Firstly, it would have been an enormous propaganda coup for the Russians. We in the West are accustomed to defections from East to West, or North to South in Korea, but for water to flow uphill would be profoundly shocking. The Russky propaganda machine would have made much hay of it, both at home and abroad.
Furthermore, he had become a treasure trove of knowledge, For several years he had toured the lecturing circuit of all the Western intelligence agencies of the 5-eyes countries, teaching the techniques and stratagems of the GRU. He would have compiled an enormous compendium of information from the Q&As at the end of his lectures. He would have learned what the agencies were most interested to learn. In other words, he could compile a comprehensive picture of what those agencies already knew and what they didn’t know and what their priorities to learn were. He was an Intelligence Officer, not some stuffed shirt in a Cossack uniform. He knew his onions. That’s why he had been recruited by SIS in the first place.
Yet furthermore, he would have learned the faces and some identities of who were the bright young things in the audiences and who were the dullards. Combined, those two datasets were a huge bucket of gold dust for Russia.
He had to be stopped, one way or another.
What was the mission of the two GRU guys? Most certainly not to kill or harm him. That’s for sure. He had become a potentially enormous asset for Russia. The most valuable since that Cambridge mob in the 1940s/50s. I think they were there as couriers of travel documents and cash and credit cards etc to facilitate his escape and perhaps to bolster his courage, one way or another, if he were to waver.
Sergei skripal was in Prague a month earlier doing his lectures. A much easier place for the Russian State to eliminate him.
not one Salisbury citizen had the idle curiosity to capture the skripals being airlifted to hospital on a mobile phone. The photos of the children who fed ducks with Sergei were taken from the mother and remain unseenn.
Exactly Eb! And how fortuitous that it just happened to happen two days before the ‘celebrations’ to mark one hundred days to go to the start of the footie, when specially prepared short videos would be shown around the world in news broadcasts, and that it should hit the headlines the next day, the day BEFORE the celebrations. Cui Bono!
Very precise timing!