Russia and its “Special Operation” in Ukraine

[LondonLax]

If the line about this being a hit by ex spies organised by rogue oligarchs was true you would think the Russian government would also be interested in tracking down these guys for questioning and could help with providing a lot of background information on them. 

[bickster]

17 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

rogue oligarchs

Non sequitur, just saying, not a reflection on your post

[peterms]

5 hours ago, blandy said:

Well, um, can you think of any drawbacks to that? I dunno like, say, if Russia was to tamper with any sample they use or provide to ensure a mismatch?

But let's assume that Russia will behave with an exemplary level of integrity and honesty, then in that case, yeah, the third party aspect is an excellent idea - all Russia needs to do is to provide a  genuine sample of their poison to the OPCW for comparison with the samples collected by the OPCW and they can clear clear their name. Sorted. Those perfidious Brits will be well and truly stuffed and shown up, and there's nothing the Brits can do to stop it.

 

You've rather missed the point that it's only if they can show ths sample provided by the UK matches the signature of the previously stolen batch that the outcome would be favourable to them.  Again, assuming such matches are possible.

By the way, the "Well, um" approach doesnt add greatly to the discussion or strengthen your argument, it's just mildly irritating.

[blandy]

46 minutes ago, peterms said:

You've rather missed the point that it's only if they can show ths sample provided by the UK matches the signature of the previously stolen batch that the outcome would be favourable to them.  Again, assuming such matches are possible.

By the way, the "Well, um" approach doesnt add greatly to the discussion or strengthen your argument, it's just mildly irritating.

I don’t think I have.

The sample provided by the U.K., the OPCW samples (which, unsurprisingly, match exactly the U.K. sample) and the Russian sample, could all be compared by the OPCW to meet your objective which as I understand it was to determine if the stuff from Salisbury matched alleged stolen Russian novichok. I don’t understand how you think the U.K. providing a sample to Russia changes the comparison, technically. If Russia has no sample we revert to my earlier point, that they will only say “not us guv” whatever the outcome, if they do have a sample, let them do as you propose and get a third party (OPCW) to do the comparison.

 Although, as I said, that rather relies on no tampering by Russia. It’s a non starter of an idea, with obvious flaws, what you proposed.

sorry to irritate, it wasn’t intended, it’s just obviously flawed.

[peterms]

20 hours ago, Brumerican said:

A pretty big fish got flipped about 6 weeks ago. 

GRU guys aren't particularly loyal.

So the presumed benefit to Russia from attacking Skripal, to deter others from betrayal, doesn't seem to be happening.

[Xann]

Private interests are muddying the waters when it comes to state level espionage.

Too many greedy, ruthless and powerful individuals with a foot in both Worlds misusing influence for their own gain.

It makes for head scratching situations like this, where everyone's looking at Russia and thinking, well that was stupid.

[Brumerican]

4 hours ago, peterms said:

So the presumed benefit to Russia from attacking Skripal, to deter others from betrayal, doesn't seem to be happening.

Good pals with Steele was Skripal. 

Obvious motive is obvious.

[peterms]

1 hour ago, Brumerican said:

Good pals with Steele was Skripal. 

Obvious motive is obvious.

That plus issuing D notices preventing Pablo Miller being named should mean Steele/Miller/Orbis would be an obvious line of inquiry for the media, but it's not happening.

I see the NY Times is reporting that Skripal was working with Spanish intelligence, giving information on Russian criminals.  That's another thing you would expect more of the media to follow up.

[Brumerican]

4 minutes ago, peterms said:

That plus issuing D notices preventing Pablo Miller being named should mean Steele/Miller/Orbis would be an obvious line of inquiry for the media, but it's not happening.

I see the NY Times is reporting that Skripal was working with Spanish intelligence, giving information on Russian criminals.  That's another thing you would expect more of the media to follow up.

I think the media is more interested in selling more media than informing the people.

[blandy]

18 hours ago, peterms said:

That plus issuing D notices preventing Pablo Miller being named should mean Steele/Miller/Orbis would be an obvious line of inquiry for the media, but it's not happening.

I see the NY Times is reporting that Skripal was working with Spanish intelligence, giving information on Russian criminals.  That's another thing you would expect more of the media to follow up.

Perhaps so. I wonder if the combo of the claim about the D notice and the general gist that it would logically tend to support the case against Russia anyway just means it’s mostly given a bit of a wide berth by the U.K. media, and isn’t of that much interest to foreign media.

i mean if info from Skripal found its way via a former spook into the Trump dossier, the one which indicates Russia has hold over Trump, that perhaps lends extra to that dossier, or perhaps not, but as you say, stories that Skripal was revealing more details about Russia’s “activities” whether to Orbis, or to Spain does tend to provide renewed motive to Russia to have him silenced.

[peterms]

14 minutes ago, blandy said:

Perhaps so. I wonder if the combo of the claim about the D notice and the general gist that it would logically tend to support the case against Russia anyway just means it’s mostly given a bit of a wide berth by the U.K. media, and isn’t of that much interest to foreign media.

i mean if info from Skripal found its way via a former spook into the Trump dossier, the one which indicates Russia has hold over Trump, that perhaps lends extra to that dossier, or perhaps not, but as you say, stories that Skripal was revealing more details about Russia’s “activities” whether to Orbis, or to Spain does tend to provide renewed motive to Russia to have him silenced.

That conclusion assumes that if Russians did it, then it's Russia.  That's quite a leap, especially when we are being told that lots of Russians are being killed by Russia because they have done something of which the government disapproves.

[blandy]

56 minutes ago, peterms said:

That conclusion assumes that if Russians did it, then it's Russia.  That's quite a leap, especially when we are being told that lots of Russians are being killed by Russia because they have done something of which the government disapproves.

Sorry, it's not a "conclusion". I was attempting to follow any kind of logic from your post as to why the media hasn't made more of claims made in the media that Skripal was talking to the Spanish services, or that the blogger made about a D notice and this Pablo Miller.

One claim seems to be along the lines of Skripal told Miller some stuff that Miller then told to Steel, that Steel then put in a dossier that the FBI was given and that shows Trump is beholden to Russian state via kompromat and financial connections etc. If that were so, and we don't know it is so, then what conclusions would you draw about how Russia/Putin might react to other Russians undermining his hold over the US President? Particularly considering Putin is concerned, enormously with alleviating Magnitsky rules which inhibit his and his cronies kleptocracy.

[peterms]

On 08/09/2018 at 11:47, blandy said:

Sorry, it's not a "conclusion". I was attempting to follow any kind of logic from your post as to why the media hasn't made more of claims made in the media that Skripal was talking to the Spanish services, or that the blogger made about a D notice and this Pablo Miller.

One claim seems to be along the lines of Skripal told Miller some stuff that Miller then told to Steel, that Steel then put in a dossier that the FBI was given and that shows Trump is beholden to Russian state via kompromat and financial connections etc. If that were so, and we don't know it is so, then what conclusions would you draw about how Russia/Putin might react to other Russians undermining his hold over the US President? Particularly considering Putin is concerned, enormously with alleviating Magnitsky rules which inhibit his and his cronies kleptocracy.

I'm expressing dismay that the media seem more interested in reporting as fact anonymous off the record briefings than in following possible stories,  and that their reaction to a D notice is compliance (we are repeatedly told that they are just advisory notices, have no legal force, and don't constitute the kind of censorship they have in bad countries; as many have noted, self-censorship by possible critics is the highest aim of the state in this area), rather than seeing it as a pointer to an interesting line of inquiry.

The claims would suggest various possible aggrieved parties,  but we are told, and many seem happy to repeat, that looking for explanations beyond what anonymous spooks say is just repeating "Russian disinformation".

I recall our media being better than this.  Am I living in a falsely remembered golden age of sceptical  testing of what the great and the good say?

[blandy]

14 hours ago, peterms said:

I recall our media being better than this.  Am I living in a falsely remembered golden age of sceptical  testing of what the great and the good say?

Probably you are, yes. And I don't mean that in a derogatory way. I mean that your alleged "golden age" is a myth. The UK media has always generally respected D / DA / DSMA notices. It's rare indeed that they haven't in any age. I can't think of any examples, off the top of my head where they haven't. Certainly examples are not 10 a penny, not from now, not from any age.

The media as a collective has always tended towards "reporting"  the "official line" with some parts asking questions based around scepticism. We've always had a media which is broadly pro the UK establishment view, but with some parts being sceptical. There's often, also the genuine need for these requests to the media, because there is a risk of harm, injury, death etc. to people or a risk of disrupting anti-terror or anti-crime operations. It's sometimes, for example the case that the notices are issued with a promise of "hold off for now, and we'll provide a lot of information after the arrest, or after the attack is thwarted..." so it's not the same as an authoritarian state, such as Russia or N. Korea, Burma or China who simply lock up or kill journalists they don't like.

In the case of the Skripals who have just survived an attempt to kill them, and before the identities and motives of the assassin(s) were known, is it really  that authoritarian of the Gov't to ask the media "not to report details of other people who they were working with"? given the possible obgoing threat? - and that's what the notice would have been, by the way - not a "do not say that Pablo Miller was talking to them"  - that's an assumption (maybe right) of a named individual by a blogger.

So more generally, what's different, perhaps, today is the internet. If someone wanted to find any take at all on any matter at all, they could go to the internet and find extreme right wing, extreme left wing, conspiracy theories, state propaganda, non-expert experts, people with chips on their shoulder, people seeking hits to make money, genuine investigative alternative media, foreign news networks, satire.....the list is endless.

It's like there's an a-la -carte selection of sources to suit any palate.

"Does sir fancy a bit of pro-Russian, anti-Western story today?" - May I direct Sir towards "sputnik or RT or for morsels, perhaps the Russian MFA on twitter". "We also have a selection of free range useful idiots, if sir would prefer a more individual feed from the East"

"Would you prefer, perhaps, a right wing conspiracy theory, for dessert ? " - Infowars is highly recommended for a barmpot take on the USA." 

And when you've got that choice to go anywhere and feed any prejudice, any desire for conspiracy, or proof of the evil of the East/West/Deep State/whoever... then it's easy to get caught up in those views and miss a broader appraisal of matters.

 

[peterms]

3 hours ago, blandy said:

In the case of the Skripals who have just survived an attempt to kill them, and before the identities and motives of the assassin(s) were known, is it really  that authoritarian of the Gov't to ask the media "not to report details of other people who they were working with"? given the possible obgoing threat? - and that's what the notice would have been, by the way - not a "do not say that Pablo Miller was talking to them"  - that's an assumption (maybe right) of a named individual by a blogger.

The purpose of the D notices is to keep the information from us, the public.  The people who might offer a threat will already know it.

The scope of the first notice was

Quote

...the identifies of intelligence agency personnel associated with Sergei Skripal are not yet widely available in the public domain. The provisions of DSMA Notice 05 therefore apply to these identities...

(the typo is apparently in the original)

This was issued the same day the Telegraph had mentioned Skripal's handler who lived in Salisbury and who worked for Orbis, and it seems reasonable to think it was a reaction to this.  Obviously anyone who has the capacity and motivation to launch a complicated attack on Skripal will know all about his contacts and what he's up to, and issuing the notice will not restrict their information nor make anyone safer.  It's about controlling the narrative, not keeping anyone safe.

Edited September 10, 2018 by peterms
clarify typo

[blandy]

41 minutes ago, peterms said:

Obviously anyone who has the capacity and motivation to launch a complicated attack on Skripal will know all about his contacts and what he's up to, and issuing the notice will not restrict their information nor make anyone safer.  It's about controlling the narrative, not keeping anyone safe.

That seems to be something of an assumption - a leap of bad faith, perhaps. I mean when you think about it, it doesn't really stand up to any scrutiny at all. Because (as you hinted at earlier) it's quite possible for the media to report on associations with Orbis, or any other entity and still acceded to the request  not to reveal "identities of intelligence agency personnel". The media is very adept at using phrases such as "someone close to...", " a senior official "  or  (hypothetically) "Skripal is suspected of having been recently providing information to intelligence agency personnel".

Though then again, it's not "fact", it's hearsay. Maybe that's got something to do with it (the limited reporting)? 

[peterms]

22 minutes ago, blandy said:

Though then again, it's not "fact", it's hearsay. Maybe that's got something to do with it (the limited reporting)? 

I think the media are more than happy to report hearsay as fact.  For example, the Telegraph is referring to the two guys as "Russian hitmen" and "senior officers from Russian military intelligence" when we have still to see anything supporting this claim (though we see elsewhere comment by various named ex-intelligence people that travelling in the way these two did is simply not what spies on a mission do, which should at least give pause for thought).  The basis for the story is that an anonymous source told them it is so, and presumably they consider that incorrect information can only come from the Russians, never from our side.

[blandy]

10 minutes ago, peterms said:

I think the media are more than happy to report hearsay as fact.

There's a slight difference between the PM (however lamentable she is) standing up in the HoC, or the Police Chief of the Major Crime unit, or the Home Secretary giving a formal statment on the identity, route taken, photographic evidence, CCTV trail, airline and flights used etc. etc. and a blogger writing something on the internet. Official statements are not "hearsay". By all means challenge the veracity of content, using evidence, they don't always have to be wholly believed, necessarily.

It doesn't make one true and one untrue, but to treat the blogger's version with little or no scepticism, despite the lack of sources etc. but yet to take the UK Gov't/Police detailed stuff as "dodgy" would be,  if not a "unique" outlook, one that would certainly be indicative of a particular, conspiratorial bent.

[peterms]

5 minutes ago, blandy said:

a formal statment on the identity, route taken, photographic evidence, CCTV trail, airline and flights used etc. etc.

It's all the stuff about nationality of passports, route, cctv etc that many people have pointed out is not something that sits easily with how spies operate.  This is just one of the things which creates doubts, and the response to these doubts is simply "trust us", rather than a credible explanation.

5 minutes ago, blandy said:

Official statements are not "hearsay"

"Sources" giving unattributable briefings to journos is hearsay.

6 minutes ago, blandy said:

to treat the blogger's version with little or no scepticism, despite the lack of sources etc. but yet to take the UK Gov't/Police detailed stuff as "dodgy"

An example.  When bloggers questioned the photos of the two walking through the tunnel with the exact same time stamp, it seemed reasonable to question the photos.  When there were shown to be four channels that people can pass through at the same time, that was a reasonable explanation which answered the doubts.

If other questions about unlikely-seeming aspects of this and other things are also answered, then it would seem unreasonable to continue doubting.  When they are not answered, then continuing scepticism is reasonable.

[blandy]

3 minutes ago, peterms said:

17 minutes ago, blandy said:

a formal statment on the identity, route taken, photographic evidence, CCTV trail, airline and flights used etc. etc.

It's all the stuff about nationality of passports, route, cctv etc that many people have pointed out is not something that sits easily with how spies operate.

Isn't it? How do they know? and regardless, I mean who was that fella they poisoned with plutonium or whatever it was? Very similar "sloppiness" and botched attempts etc.

As we have discussed previously, that act brought no consequences. Why would Russia think it would be any different this time? The UK, and May in particular has been very reticent about taking any serious action, other than the symbolic, previously. Even this time, there's been expulsions of some diplo's, some "tough talking" and ....nothing else. Nothing of actual consequence. No implementing of financial penalties and checks against all the looted, laundered money and all the rest.

There remain a number of questions about this whole Salisbury thing. What these unresolved things don't do is point to an alternative narrative, that it was the AMericans, or the UK, or was not a sanctioned Russian attack. It's not quite Occam's razor, but its not far off.