Russia and its “Special Operation” in Ukraine

[tonyh29]

1 hour ago, LondonLax said:

 

This assassination has come at a great time for Putin. Nothing like a bit of nationalism to drum up a vote before an election, a bit like Thatcher invading the Falklands

I get the sentiment here but Thatcher didn’t “invade “ the Falklands... The Argentinians invaded them , she rightly sent a task force to eject them 

 

[mjmooney]

34 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

I get the sentiment here but Thatcher didn’t “invade “ the Falklands... The Argentinians invaded them , she rightly sent a task force to eject them 

 

The Argentinians invaded the Falklands; Thatcher invaded the Malvinas. 

[LondonLax]

46 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

I get the sentiment here but Thatcher didn’t “invade “ the Falklands... The Argentinians invaded them , she rightly sent a task force to eject them 

 

A fair correction 

[Risso]

You can't invade your own sovereign territory.

[peterms]

20 hours ago, coda said:

There's a stream of interesting replies from a research chemist if you click on this tweet.

If you go a bit further, you see that while he doesn't address Murray's question about whether it can be shown to have been produced in Russia, when someone else asks him that question he does answer, and says not.

So, he's posted some information about the chemistry of novychok and how it can be identified, but is saying that this doesn't show it was produced in Russia.  His belief that it was is based on the balance of probabilities, ie things other than the chemistry.

The twitter thread is full of stuff on the lines "Wow, you really showed him up", "Great to see a proper scientist debunking the conspiracy nutjobs" and the like.

I'm really puzzled about why people think he has provided a science-based rebuttal of the possibility that someone other than Russia could have produced the stuff, when he says clearly that he hasn't.  His opinion about that is formed on the same basis as other people's, ie judgements about possible motivation and the like.  One of the comments to Murray's article points out that Davies seems to have been responding to Murray's doubts about how the substance could have been identified so quickly, not the subsequent question about where it could have been produced.  Possibly people reading the tweets have concluded that he answered all the questions Murray posed, when he didn't. 

Those tweets are referenced in a further article by Murray, here, which looks at the form of words being used in governmental statements.

Quote

I have now received confirmation from a well placed FCO source that Porton Down scientists are not able to identify the nerve gas as being of Russian manufacture, and have been resentful of the pressure being placed on them to do so. Porton Down would only sign up to the formulation “of a type developed by Russia” after a rather difficult meeting where this was agreed as a compromise formulation. The Russians were allegedly researching, in the “Novichok” programme a generation of nerve agents which could be produced from commercially available precursors such as insecticides and fertilisers. This substance is a “novichok” in that sense. It is of that type. Just as I am typing on a laptop of a type developed by the United States, though this one was made in China.

To anybody with a Whitehall background this has been obvious for several days. The government has never said the nerve agent was made in Russia, or that it can only be made in Russia. The exact formulation “of a type developed by Russia” was used by Theresa May in parliament, used by the UK at the UN Security Council, used by Boris Johnson on the BBC yesterday and, most tellingly of all, “of a type developed by Russia” is the precise phrase used in the joint communique issued by the UK, USA, France and Germany yesterday:

This use of a military-grade nerve agent, of a type developed by Russia, constitutes the first offensive use of a nerve agent in Europe since the Second World War.

When the same extremely careful phrasing is never deviated from, you know it is the result of a very delicate Whitehall compromise. My FCO source, like me, remembers the extreme pressure put on FCO staff and other civil servants to sign off the dirty dossier on Iraqi WMD, some of which pressure I recount in my memoir Murder in Samarkand. She volunteered the comparison to what is happening now, particularly at Porton Down, with no prompting from me.

 

So, can this stuff be made in Russia?  Yes.  Can it only be made in Russia?  No.  Was this particular batch made in Russia?  At present it seems we don't know, and governmental statements seem to stop short of definitively claiming that, although government ministers clearly think it was, and want others to believe that as well.

And in answer to the bigger question of whether the Russian government ordered the attempted murders, I take it that the evidence doesn't prove that (perhaps new evidence may do so), and it's a question of judgement and probability.  If that's the case, then the response we make should be more cautious than if we are certain.

[HanoiVillan]

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.

[Awol]

UK has shared the intelligence with Germany & France satisfying them of Russia’s responsibility for this act. Neither country has an interest in escalating tensions with Russia by standing with the UK, but they are.

Trump has appeared to favour Putin so heavily he’s regularly referred to as the Manchurian Candidate. Yet, UK shared the intelligence from Salisbury and the US has now fallen in behind the UK position.

The Russian backstory and penchant for murdering people who cross them is well known, this poisoning fits their MO. Their general response to the story through domestic media basically boils down to a schizophrenic combination of “the Brit’s did it” and “yeah, so what?”

Aside from a few er, eccentric characters like Craig Murray & Jeremy Corbyn their doesn’t seem to be much argument over what’s happened.

I’m struggling to understand the reluctance to acknowledge the obvious, unless the paradigm is “Western colonial oppressors = bad, Anti-Western forces = good.”

Is that what’s all about? 

Edited March 16, 2018 by Awol

[LondonLax]

I think the Iraq war poisoned the well of good faith in the government so much that if they told us the sky was blue a lot of people would still look out side and check.

 

 

Edited March 16, 2018 by LondonLax

[Awol]

5 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

I think the Iraq war poisoned the well of good faith in the government so much that if they told us the sky was blue a lot of people would still look out side and check.

 

 

#MeToo but the difference seems to be Iraq was about believing in the existence or a WMD programme without firm evidence, whereas in Salisbury the evidence is lying in a hospital bed. 

[villakram]

If this gentleman had returned to the game after previously being booted out for being caught red handed. Does that make him a legitimate target?

I find this sort of language corrupt and offensive, but going by the current paradigm, one appears required to question in this manner.

[Awol]

4 minutes ago, villakram said:

If this gentleman had returned to the game after previously being booted out for being caught red handed. Does that make him a legitimate target?

I find this sort of language corrupt and offensive, but going by the current paradigm, one appears required to question in this manner.

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. 

 

 

 

[Xann]

Quote

 

On March 14 2018, British Prime Minister Theresa May announced her package of measures to “punish” Russia for launching a chemical weapon attack in Salisbury.

May and her Government failed to address almost all key, immediate actions necessary to respond to hybrid warfare, condemning the beleaguered United Kingdom to a slow demise at the hands of Putin's reinvigorated and increasingly hostile Russian state.

There's not really an easy way to break this news so it's probably best to start with the light relief.

Central to Theresa May's response to the Salisbury chemical weapon attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia using OPCW undeclared Russian nerve agent Novichok, May announced she would be punishing the Kremlin by “confirming there will be no attendance by Ministers — or indeed Members of the Royal Family — at this Summer’s World Cup in Russia.”

To calmly highlight the most glaring of weaknesses: to punish a nation which famously killed its royal family, we aren’t going to send ours for a jolly at the World Cup.

Unfortunately, that is as light as the relief gets. Britain is in real trouble. More than ever before. And, despite everything, what happens next is going to take everyone by surprise.

Before May announced her responses, it was clear we would all find out whether the country was signalling submission to Russia, plotting a misguided counter-attack which would see dire consequence, or if sufficient understanding existed in Parliament to provide the correct response.

On a day which defined Britain's future, the Government led by May made bad choices and, with a failure to immediately address the critical aspects of Russian hybrid warfare, the Kremlin disinformation campaigns being waged against the UK have already succeeded...

... Brexit is the biggest strategic win for Russia in the world — after the installation of a managed democracy in the United States with Trump at the wheel, of course.

May had a singular opportunity to set down partisan politics and internal party civil wars not to cancel, but to suspend the British departure from the European Union during a period of conflict which requires one hundred per cent of national attention. She would have mitigated risk by re-building bridges with those standing close beside us - all in open solidarity despite our recent petulence, one might add.

The EU would have accepted this suspension, and May could have set fixed review dates with a firm plan to return to the negotiations undistracted at a later time, without any of the growing concerns around Brexit being tarnished by the undue influence of a hostile state.

Instead, she chose to ignore the clear risk completely. Resulting in the inevitable economic downturn, reduction in diplomatic and trade power, and the overburdening of every aspect of Britain's state. While, of course, breaking crime and terrorism information sharing protocols and opening the country up to new waves of criminality and tax evasion arising from the necessity of national desperation.

The perfect conditions Russia's criminal state likes to thrive in.

Rather than punish the Kremlin by disengaging with it, May's catastrophic choices have rewarded it with unprecedented opportunity.

 

Byline

Edited March 16, 2018 by Xann

[peterms]

6 hours ago, blandy said:

That’s a slightly odd take on it. I quoted an expert, who has actual experience in the specific area. He’s not a government bod, or a politician. You seem happier with a blogger who cites unnamed sources.

He's an expert, yes.

In respect of his claim that novychok was only produced in central Russia and not Uzbekhistan, he is contradicted by a BBC report from 1999 here which says

Quote

A group of American defence experts have arrived in Uzbekistan to start helping the Uzbeks dismantle and decontaminate one of the former Soviet Union's largest chemical weapons testing facilities.

US officials say the chemical research institute in western Uzbekistan was a major research site for a new generation of secret, highly lethal chemical weapons, known as Novichok.

Congress has allocated up to $6m for the project, after the US signed an agreement on assistance to help dismantle the institute earlier in the year.

I assume the report is based on information given by the US at the time.

So his accuracy in this matter of where novychok was produced is questionable, as it contradicts what I assume are official sources reporting in a matter-of-fact way something which at the time was presumably uncontroversial - I'm not sure why there would be a reason to doubt this account.  But either that report is wrong, or what he is now saying is wrong.

The report goes on to say that the Uzbekhistan facility was staffed only by Russians.  But he's not saying that the facility was controlled by Russia, he is saying it was only in central Russia and not Uzbekhistan.  On the basis of the BBC report, you would have to conclude that both Uzbekhistan and the US had access to any remaining novochok.  And if the Russians had failed to remove chemical weapons from the site (which is the reason for the US team being there, so we can assume that is the case), then there is also a question about who else may have had access between the Russians leaving and the US arriving, which gets back to the possibility of some kind of rogue actor. 

The report does describe the site as a research site and says small batches were produced for testing, so it's not clear that it was actually a production facility - perhaps that is the distinction de Bretton-Gordon is trying to make, without saying so explicitly?  But without making this clear, his words give the impression, based on his status as an expert in this field, that the only place novychok could have been found was that one site in Russia.  Is he seeking to mislead and misdirect without directly lying?

As for his objectivity, he is very close to the security services, and therefore I assume he is unlikely to undermine what the UK government is saying.  His claim that it was only to be found in Russia seems to shore up the government line that it must have come from Russia, but the BBC report seems more credible to me, as I can see no reason why the BBC or the US would have lied at the time about what was then not a sensitive or controversial issue.  I can however very easily see why someone in his position would now say something supportive, especially if framed in a form of words which is not strictly untrue but which gives a misleading impression.

So as I said earlier, are there other accounts which support his claim that it was only produced in central Russia and not Uzbekistan?

[Awol]

13 minutes ago, Xann said:

Byline

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. 

[peterms]

7 hours ago, blandy said:

The rest of your post I genuinely don’t see any point replying to in any detail, I find the words very disappointing indeed.

Sorry if it came across poorly, not intending to.

[Xann]

2 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!

You're right - It wasn't the best editing, sorry, I've realised that looking back now, but I am at work doing half a dozen other things.

5 minutes ago, Awol said:

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

You're still avoiding the truth. You've been played like a balalaika, along with other admittedly far more odious sections of our society.

[blandy]

4 minutes ago, peterms said:

He's an expert, yes.

In respect of his claim that novychok was only produced in central Russia and not Uzbekhistan, he is contradicted by a BBC report from 1999 here which says

I assume the report is based on information given by the US at the time.

So his accuracy in this matter of where novychok was produced is questionable, as it contradicts what I assume are official sources reporting in a matter-of-fact way something which at the time was presumably uncontroversial - I'm not sure why there would be a reason to doubt this account.  But either that report is wrong, or what he is now saying is wrong.

The report goes on to say that the Uzbekhistan facility was staffed only by Russians.  But he's not saying that the facility was controlled by Russia, he is saying it was only in central Russia and not Uzbekhistan.  On the basis of the BBC report, you would have to conclude that both Uzbekhistan and the US had access to any remaining novochok.  And if the Russians had failed to remove chemical weapons from the site (which is the reason for the US team being there, so we can assume that is the case), then there is also a question about who else may have had access between the Russians leaving and the US arriving, which gets back to the possibility of some kind of rogue actor. 

The report does describe the site as a research site and says small batches were produced for testing, so it's not clear that it was actually a production facility - perhaps that is the distinction de Bretton-Gordon is trying to make, without saying so explicitly?  But without making this clear, his words give the impression, based on his status as an expert in this field, that the only place novychok could have been found was that one site in Russia.  Is he seeking to mislead and misdirect without directly lying?

As for his objectivity, he is very close to the security services, and therefore I assume he is unlikely to undermine what the UK government is saying.  His claim that it was only to be found in Russia seems to shore up the government line that it must have come from Russia, but the BBC report seems more credible to me, as I can see no reason why the BBC or the US would have lied at the time about what was then not a sensitive or controversial issue.  I can however very easily see why someone in his position would now say something supportive, especially if framed in a form of words which is not strictly untrue but which gives a misleading impression.

So as I said earlier, are there other accounts which support his claim that it was only produced in central Russia and not Uzbekistan?

Re the BBC report, neither of us can know, but there are further interpretations - including that a research site in Uzbekistan is not a production site, as you mention -i.e. that for example samples made elsewhere were tested there (and all by Russians, who cleared the place out before the Americans got there). It's highly unlikely to sy the least that the Russians left stocks of (then) Secret and highly dangerous chemical weapons knocking around, when they'd spent the previous period denying anyone at all any access or detailed knowledge of what was being done there. I think it's a very big jump to say the US or Uzbekistan had access to novichoks based on that report. We also cannot conclude from the report that the particular member of the novichok group of CWs used in the attack was one from Uzbek.

The UK and NATO CW expert I quoted isn't contradicted by anything in the BBC report, though there's room to generate either contradiction or non-contradiction, depending on personal preference, I suppose. The angle of "Is he seeking to mislead and misdirect without directly lying?" is kind of a fair one to take, and particularly wrt politicians and if we take that approach, we should apply it evenly. I'm not sure all your posts have applied the question to all the sources. Some of your posts give more leeway to information that others. 

He is no doubt close to some people in the Security services. Yer man the blogger is also (very justifiably) not exactly a fan of "the establishment". Perhaps we should apply a question of motivation to his posts too?  ("the predecessors of these clowns did me over, so the current lot are no doubt at it, too") He's clearly not objective.

Re other sources. Yes, there was a Russian defector who said much the same - he basically said he made the stuff in Russia.O found it when I saw your link to Murray's blog saying the stuff was made in Uzbekistan and not in Russia as the UK was claiming. I saw it on the work computer, not this one, so haven't got the history to go back to, unfortunately.

[peterms]

2 minutes ago, blandy said:

when I saw your link to Murray's blog saying the stuff was made in Uzbekistan and not in Russia as the UK was claiming. I saw it on the work computer, not this one

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

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

[blandy]

11 minutes ago, Xann said:

You're still avoiding the truth. You've been played like a balalaika, along with other admittedly far more odious sections of our society.

Quote

The truth of the  Skripal story is not a complex one.
The Kremlin picked on a vulnerable and weakened British state, in which it has spread its tendrils without parry for many years, knowing it would likely get away with a nerve agent attack in the public’s eyes because doubt in the establishment is embedded, and used the attempted assassination to send a message to the Government to stop mouthing off about Russia being a threat.
The staging was quite deliberate, with the nearby Porton Down R&D facility making the perfect pre-packed conspiracy, and a more subtle message to the security services was embedded too: a chemical weapon was used on the doorstep of Winterbourne Gunner, the Defence Chemical Biological Radiological and Nuclear Centre (DCBRNC), where national training is designed and delivered.
Skripal  himself was selected because he provides a wealth of potential in terms of pliable narrative, from his history as a double agent to alleged links to Christopher Steele, to his daughter continuing her life in Moscow and the deaths of his son and wife.
Even the choice of nerve agent was meticulous.
While we know only Russia had the chemical weapon Novichok, developed during the days of the USSR as untraceable, it was never officially declared to the OPCW. This plays perfectly to disinformation as, only in September 2017, Russia was officially recognised as having destroyed all of its declared chemical weapons.
Unless you know about NIT or dig a little deeper — which most people will not as studies are continuing to show — all you find on the internet is records of Russia playing by the rules. And it takes a huge amount of effort to even begin undoing the damage of a successfully implanted false narrative.

Additionally, the incident was critically timed to allow Putin to project power to his home audience during elections.
There is nothing complicated about what Russia does. It operates with a horrible simplicity which is time-served, well tested, and undeniably effective.

The whole article is spot on, the bit on Brexit (which I guess you're referring to) to be fair would create its own chaos, regardless of AWOLs views on Brexit, so that's a bit unfair.

[Awol]

3 minutes ago, Xann said:

You're right - It wasn't the best editing, sorry, I've realised that looking back now, but I am at work doing half a dozen other things.

Fair do’s, I’m avoiding a horrible essay...

You're still avoiding the truth. You've been played like a balalaika, along with other admittedly far more odious sections of our society.

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.