Russia and its “Special Operation” in Ukraine

[blandy]

3 minutes ago, peterms said:

You viewed Craig Murray's blog from your work computer?

Best not take a walk in the woods anytime soon...

Too late, that's where I am now, with my new "friend" who is wearing sunglasses and a black suit. Got a lovely black motor with tinted windows, and he's carrying a spade. I'll be fine, what could possi.........

[tonyh29]

58 minutes ago, Awol said:

Funny thing, you edited out all of the really good bits of the response May should have made and left in the one bit she couldn’t!

Cancelling or indefinitely postponing Brexit (no way the EU would wear the latter) would cause chaos in the public square and in politics - by ending her Premiership and bringing down the government. 

I think the author was making great points right up until he let his own prejudices/desires cloud his analysis. 

I think anyone who calls themselves a "moonlit dreamer " on their bio should be ignored

[tonyh29]

not supposed to be related  to Salisbury but police have confirmed Nikolai Glushkov was murdered

 

[Xann]

56 minutes ago, Awol said:

Mate I’ve been on the Brexit train since the Lisbon Treaty, if not a little before. If that’s delusional in your view then that’s cool, but I got there all by myself through reasoning, not brainwashing by the shower of excrement that led the Leave campaign. 

 

I don’t accept the premise that Brexit is good for Russia, there’s a strong argument for the opposite.

The UK will focus more on strengthening NATO, while simultaneously removing the barrier we had become to much greater EU integration as they drive on to their superstate. 

I like you - But you're wrong.

Did India and Pakistan joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation not ring any alarm bells?

Putin's Russia is looking to become the armourer and enforcer for the next World power.

Trump and Brexit just accelerate the shift in influence to the East.

Edited March 16, 2018 by Xann
Added 'Putin's' to Russia.

[villakram]

4 hours ago, Awol said:

That was the argument advanced for why Litvinenko was targeted, but even assuming that was true of Skripal (seen nothing to suggest it is/was), there are ways of going about it. This looks much more like strategic communication saying different things to different audiences. 

The protocol, such as it is, appears to be that those people involved in swaps are subsequently left alone by the other side. It’s really not common for countries to bump off each other’s spies, for obvious reasons of reprisal/reciprocation. 

There’s some interesting open source  analysis online about ‘Reflexive Control theory’ as developed by the Russians. Not just propaganda (or info’ ops in the modern lingo), but guiding an opponent down an already thought through path to a desired end state by tailoring an event to illicit those responses - then introducing certain stimuli to prod them along. Basically engaging in conflict using means other than war to achieve a goal/end state.

Some analysis of the US election interference cites it as a classic example of this, whereby it’s not about who gets into the Whitehouse, it’s about putting the opponent in a cognitive box and keeping them there. The election interference wasn’t the operation, it’s the box within which to trap the opponent - and the operation is ongoing. 

Worth considering whether Salisbury is a similar play, what reaction it’s supposed to illicit and what the other side’s desired end state is. 

 

 

 

 

Exactly, this is the type of more open thinking that should be taking place, not the simplistic cold war drum beating from the standard folks and NATO worshippers.

It has been "reported" in multiple non-mainstream online places (buyer beware), that this gentleman had connections to the eponymous Steele network, not Steele  himself. Who knows if this is true, but in a related sense, I do wonder if some of the digging about that Mueller et al. are doing over here had the effect of outing a number of those doing stealthy type things.

There's the famous example of the US Chinese deep cover network getting destroyed a few years ago, and it at least one case the in an office were all marched into a courtyard where the spy was then shot in the head in front of everyone else. Much handwringing went on over here about that. I'd be astonished if at least MI6 hadn't attempted to re-recruit in this case.

 

[Chindie]

On 3/13/2018 at 16:13, Chindie said:

In other news, one of Berezovsky's friends has been found dead in London. He was 69 so probably nothing. What timing though.

To bring this back up, looks like he died of the perfectly natural cause of 'compression to the neck'.

Probably still unrelated but blimey, being Russian in the UK must be on the riskiest things you can be. Especially if you're not Putin's Christmas card list.

[blandy]

7 minutes ago, Chindie said:

being Russian in the UK must be on the riskiest things you can be. Especially if you're not Putin's Christmas card list.

The location doesn't matter. His opponents keep catching death wherever they are. He's an absolute tyrant.

[Risso]

1 hour ago, Chindie said:

To bring this back up, looks like he died of the perfectly natural cause of 'compression to the neck'.

Probably still unrelated but blimey, being Russian in the UK must be on the riskiest things you can be. Especially if you're not Putin's Christmas card list.

Could just have been an asphyxiwank gone wrong?

[villakram]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

The location doesn't matter. His opponents keep catching death wherever they are. He's an absolute tyrant.

A non-negligible number of Russian diplomats and other types met their end over the past few years, e.g., the most obvious being the Turkey thing. It's certainly not only Putin who is at this. Lot's more going on in the world than those things reported by the BBC.

[peterms]

Treasonous lefty twaddle

Quote

It’s not every day you find yourself thinking that, well, Jeremy Corbyn has a point, but that’s just how I felt when he wrote in yesterday’s Guardian and reiterated later that the Government was ‘rushing way ahead of the evidence’ in condemning Russia for the attack on Sergei Skripal. Yesterday he observed that ‘this horrific event demands..painstaking criminal investigation…to rush way ahead of the evidence being gathered by the police in a fevered parliamentary atmosphere, serves neither justice nor our national security.’ I don’t think he was being treasonous in suggesting that Russia should have been given more time to respond, and possibly a sample of the toxin to analyse. He didn’t say the Government was wrong; he simply said it was precipitate.

It’s difficult, in fact, to gainsay his analysis, that ‘either this was a crime authored by the Russian state; or that state has allowed these deadly toxins to slip out of the control it has an obligation to exercise. If the latter, a connection to Russian mafia-like groups…cannot be excluded’. Well, quite so. And if, as the Daily Telegraph reports today, the nerve agent was given to Yulia Skripal on a visit to Moscow – a nice present in a box for her father, perhaps – then the best chance of establishing who was to blame is if this poor woman does not die but survives, to tell the police who she met with, who had access to her belongings, who gave her stuff before she returned.

Of course I think that the Government has a duty of care towards its agents, especially those like Sergei Skripal, who were double agents. For one thing, if you don’t look after them, you won’t continue to recruit them. It’s also the case that the Russian government had the maximum access to the nerve toxin used to try to kill Mr Skripal, though security at chemical weapons sites appears to have been hair-raisingly negligent – culpably negligent.

But really, in this as in so much else the question is, cui bono? Who gains from this blatant attempted murder? It’s by no means certain that the Russian state gains a great deal. The probable result of attempted murder of a British agent on British soil (even if the toxin was transported from Moscow) was exactly what has happened: the expulsion of Russian diplomats, ratcheting up of sanctions and a general sense that Russia’s in the global dog house. I don’t think that’s a gain in the Russian elections; it’ll probably be discounted, but it’s not particularly an electoral asset. The argument that cuts most ice in favour of Russian involvement is that this would send a message to other would-be spies that defecting to the UK isn’t good for your health – but killing a man who has been traded years ago in an orderly exchange of agents is a breach of the rules that doesn’t make much sense.

Those who do stand to benefit from this attempted murder are opponents of the Russian regime; either organised criminals, Mr Corbyn’s ‘Russia mafia-style groups’ or other states – I dunno, maybe Ukraine? – which gain rather than lose if the Putin regime is even further discredited. If it were indeed a hostile state that carried out this attack, then it has worked better than they could ever have imagined. If it was the Putin regime, then a clumsy, terrifying murder bid has had precisely the predictable effect.

Either way, I can’t help thinking that Jeremy Corbyn cuts a more convincing figure in this awful affair than either Mrs May or poor Gavin Williamson who told the Russians they should ‘just shut up’. Show how it’s done, Gavin; show how it’s done.

 

[snowychap]

Russia spy poisoning: 23 UK diplomats expelled from Moscow

Quote

...

The UK Foreign Office said in a statement that it had "anticipated a response of this kind" from Russia

...

No shit. I bet you had your top brains on that.

[peterms]

26 minutes ago, snowychap said:

Russia spy poisoning: 23 UK diplomats expelled from Moscow

No shit. I bet you had your top brains on that.

Interesting timing on our part.

Since there was apparent concern that Putin would try to use the "everybody hates us/defend the motherland/we are being unfairly attacked/but I'm a tough guy who will stand up against them" card to bolster his vote in the election, and since expelling Russian diplomats is an open invitation to play that card and announce the inevitable expulsion of ours in return, why rush to expel the Russian diplomats immediately before the election rather than wait three or four days?

Obviously this didn't escape the notice of our senior advisers and Mrs May, and even Johnson must have realised it.  So why do it when they did, I wonder?

[blandy]

31 minutes ago, peterms said:

Interesting timing on our part.

Since there was apparent concern that Putin would try to use the "everybody hates us/defend the motherland/we are being unfairly attacked/but I'm a tough guy who will stand up against them" card to bolster his vote in the election, and since expelling Russian diplomats is an open invitation to play that card and announce the inevitable expulsion of ours in return, why rush to expel the Russian diplomats immediately before the election rather than wait three or four days?

Obviously this didn't escape the notice of our senior advisers and Mrs May, and even Johnson must have realised it.  So why do it when they did, I wonder?

It's not rocket science is it. May is not devious (for a politician), in the way that Osborne, Mandelson and those types are. She mostly doesn't play "boys games".

It's been determined, to the satisfaction of people from May to Corbyn that Russia was behind the chemical weapon attack on the two people in Salisbury. She was previously weak on Russia (Litvinenko), and Russia has essentially had another go at the UK, because they think (rightly) that the UK is particularly weak at the moment. So Russia tested the UK again. Russia knew the potential likely reaction would be some diplomats expelled (with a mirror expulsion the other way) and an oh so strong statement of condemnation from our pals. Everyone knows that. People in the UK, in Russia, in the US, everywhere.

May therefore either expels some diplomats and gathers a strongly worded statement, or sits on her hands and confirms further to the world her weakness. Putin's led the whole thing. From his threat to do it a few years back in 2010 when Skirpal was released (Skirpal/traitors  will "kick the bucket") to actually doing it now. A nice little row showing Putin defending Russia against, ahem, unfounded accusations from the West and reacting with calculated retaliation suits him very nicely thank you.

May couldn't not act, once they'd decided it was the Russians. She loses either way. 

 

[peterms]

17 minutes ago, blandy said:

May couldn't not act, once they'd decided it was the Russians. She loses either way. 

But she has rushed to judgement.  If we had for example gone down the (proper) route of working via OPCW, supplying a sample, discussing findings with them before being seen to reach a firm conclusion, she wouldn't have lost anything.  She would have had a stronger position, as well as not giving Putin a bit of a boost in his election.

Though she would have had less to work with in respect of trying to divide the Labour Party, of course.

[blandy]

3 minutes ago, peterms said:

But she has rushed to judgement.  If we had for example gone down the (proper) route of working via OPCW, supplying a sample, discussing findings with them before being seen to reach a firm conclusion, she wouldn't have lost anything.  She would have had a stronger position, as well as not giving Putin a bit of a boost in his election.

Though she would have had less to work with in respect of trying to divide the Labour Party, of course.

She is almost forced to "rush to judgement". Once the Police found the people with Chemical Weapon caused life ending (if not yet) symptoms and the whole activity of DSTL investigating what the chemical was, what the danger to other people is, what treatments are needed and all that, and the source toxin is traced to be a Russian Chemical weapon, there has to be the statement to parliament and updates etc.

Given the info from DSTL and intelligence services etc. is briefed to the Privy council (which includes multiple figures from opposition parties), she either acts, or is slated for not acting and weakness. Like I said she looks bad whatever she does, but there's at least some positive (as you say) domestically from the route she took. Make sure they know what the stuff was, look at the overall picture, determine the "almost certain" perps and then act.

It'll be interesting to see what comes out of the OPCW leg of this thing. When will they look at the evidence, what will they say. They deal with declared Chemical weapons, not undeclared ones. There's politics in there as well, for sure. If they conclude also it was the Russians, then they're admitting they effed up when they said that Russia had got rid of all its CWs. If they don't also conclude the substance is Russian, will various nations whose experts make up the OPCW technical inspectorate speak?

[peterms]

4 minutes ago, blandy said:

It'll be interesting to see what comes out of the OPCW leg of this thing. When will they look at the evidence, what will they say. They deal with declared Chemical weapons, not undeclared ones. There's politics in there as well, for sure. If they conclude also it was the Russians, then they're admitting they effed up when they said that Russia had got rid of all its CWs. If they don't also conclude the substance is Russian, will various nations whose experts make up the OPCW technical inspectorate speak?

I don't understand why it is undeclared.  Murray says it may not even exist but may just have been a research programme which didn't conclude, but that doesn't explain why the US were reported to be dealing with it in shutting down the Uzbekhistan plant.  And it seems well enough known to have made it into the plot of some tv drama I've never heard of.  So how can it be unknown to the OPCW list?  They don't have to wait for someone else to declare its existence, do they?  I don't get it.

Quote

The rest of the team track McAllister and Zaryn to a training camp in the countryside. They save McAllister from being hanged and collect Zaryn. When their transport breaks down after eluding the first wave of enemies, Josef jams all communication. Believing her brother to be increasingly unstable, Rosa wishes to tell Section 20 everything she knows about Lowry in exchange for her safety. Meanwhile, General Lázsló shuts down Section 20, forcing Donovan to work in secret. She discovers that Zaryn is in fact Karim Markov, a Russian scientist who allegedly killed his colleagues with Novichok, a nerve agent they invented.

As for concluding whether it is Russian (rather than "of a type developed in Russia"), Tim Hayward includes a comment from Prof McKeague, who says in reply to a question posed to Hayward

Quote

Tim, i would like to know if Dr Whites statement here is true . She is Research Director for International Security at Chatham House and has said that British experts would definitely be able to detect minute trace elements in samples of the Novichok nerve agent used in Salisbury that would prove the country of origin thus providing clear and definitive evidence if the nerve agent originated in Russia. Its my understanding that there is no inevitably at all of any marker or trace elements. I would love to know what the truth really is on this important point.Thanks if you can clarify

Reply

• Paul McKeigue says:

  March 16, 2018 at 3:26 pm

  Bill

  This point was discussed in an earlier thread on the alleged sarin attacks in Syria

  https://timhayward.wordpress.com/2017/07/08/how-like-sarin-is-a-sarin-like-substance/#comment-1151

  My comment links to a paper by Fraga et al. and to conference presentations on “chemical signature attribution” of chemical warfare agents.

  In brief the answer is yes. A formal chemical signature attribution study, based on the profile of hundreds of trace impurities, comparing the target sample with reference samples of the agent or its precursors, and using multivariate statistical analysis to combine information from all the impurities, can identify the source. Such a chemical signature attribution study has never been reported for the sarin collected from alleged chemical attacks in Syria, though reference material has been available to OPCW since 2014 from the Syrian military stocks of sarin precursor destroyed on the MV Cape Ray.

  One caution in applying this to a Novichok sample is that Mirzayanov has claimed that the precursors of Novichoks are “ordinary organophosphates that can be made at commercial chemical companies that manufacture such products as fertilizers and pesticides”. If this is true, anyone who wanted to lay a trail of false evidence could prepare the agent using precursors sourced from Russia.

Which is a further argument for not rushing to judgement.  If analysis can show that the components actually came from Russia, then although it doesn't prove who did it, it is a stronger basis for asking Russia to explain it.  I assume if analysis had already shown that, then we wouldn't have the carefully-worded statement which stops short of saying so.

[peterms]

On 16/03/2018 at 10:48, HanoiVillan said:

That Clyde Davis guy is absolutely full of it, and I genuinely despise this tossy 'I Know Science Better Than Thou, Mere Mortal' tone of smuggery that he adopts, when if you strip back the layers, his entire thread boils down to 'it's possible to analyse a substance using a mass spectrometer', which nobody was denying in the first place. Once you've made this (very obvious) point though, the question of how the substance came to be in the place that it was found is the same question of intelligence and spies and secrets that people were questioning in the first place.

The way people leapt on that thread was pretty embarrassing IMO.

Interestingly, while he says it can't be proven that it was made in Russia, the comment from Prof Paul McKeague I posted a little earlier says it can be shown where the ingredients came from, using chemical analysis rather than "the balance of probabilities". 

 

[blandy]

25 minutes ago, peterms said:

I don't understand why it is undeclared.  Murray says it may not even exist but may just have been a research programme which didn't conclude, but that doesn't explain why the US were reported to be dealing with it in shutting down the Uzbekhistan plant.  And it seems well enough known to have made it into the plot of some tv drama I've never heard of.  So how can it be unknown to the OPCW list?  They don't have to wait for someone else to declare its existence, do they?  I don't get it...

I don't understand why you don't understand! To state the bleeding' obvious, if/when a nation makes a declaration to the OPCW, they detail what they've got and how much of it. The declaration obviously covers CWs. Any declaration also doesn't necessarily cover substances which if combined then become CWs (the ingredients).

The BBC report didn't say the US were "dealing with" Novichoks, did it? It said they went there to dismantle and decontaminate the facility after it had been closed down.

The stuff is known about because various people, including the guy who made it in Russia have provided details.

 

[Awol]

Craig Murray has descended on twitter into the usual redoubt of the hard left and is blaming the Israelis. Quoting the guy as a credible source is like repeating the witterings of David Icke, imo.

Meanwhile the Russian government has said Novichok doesn't exist, then said it might have been made by UK to kill Skripal, but in so acknowledging the agent does exist. We know it exists because the defector scientist Vil Mirzayanov who coined the term “Novichok agent” told us  that he’d invented out and gave us the formulas. Then he wrote a book about it. The Russian embassy in UK acknowledged this by quoting an interview he gave stating he’d given us the formulas!!

The OPCW has confirmed the Novichok family the Russian CW agents was never declared to them, putting Russia in breach of the treaty, so they held this back - illegally. 

This pattern of Russian behaviour is called disinformation, or ‘BS’ in Anglo-Saxon talk. At this point I really fail to see how people are engaging in this willful dissembling over what has happened. 

Finally why on earth should we start providing samples to Russia and engaging further in their charade? I’d much rather we supplied Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine so they can chew up the non-existent armoured vehicles of the non-existent Russian army that isn’t currently sat in the east of their country following a non-existent invasion. 

We know the Russian invasion never happened and those soldiers aren’t there because Putin said so, & the first rule of international relations is Putin isn’t a lying, murdering, gangster bastard who authorized the use of chemical weapons in the UK.

It’s like living in a parallel universe sometimes. 

[peterms]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

I don't understand why you don't understand! To state the bleeding' obvious, if/when a nation makes a declaration to the OPCW, they detail what they've got and how much of it. The declaration obviously covers CWs. Any declaration also doesn't necessarily cover substances which if combined then become CWs (the ingredients).

The BBC report didn't say the US were "dealing with" Novichoks, did it? It said they went there to dismantle and decontaminate the facility after it had been closed down.

The stuff is known about because various people, including the guy who made it in Russia have provided details.

 

Yes, I suppose the report doesn't say there was actually any of the stuff there - I had assumed there would have been and that OPCW would maintain a list of nasty stuff from all over, but perhaps they only keep lists of what signatory countries have declared they hold.