Russia and its “Special Operation” in Ukraine

[coda]

4 hours ago, NurembergVillan said:

 

 

 

[peterms]

Johnson, on R4 Today, fails to answer question about why they have not sent a sample to OPCW, but says they will do so.

[Dodgyknees]

14 hours ago, NurembergVillan said:

The new hairstyle suits you.

[Demitri_C]

I have to say I really dislike May but I think she has handled the situation well with Russia. 

[NurembergVillan]

48 minutes ago, Dick said:

The new hairstyle suits you.

I actually had a haircut a bit like that back in the late 90s.  Not that colour, but just as feminine.

FML.

[Brumerican]

Yeah ...WE chose confrontation haha .

I have lived in Salisbury.

It's definitely in England.

[bickster]

1 hour ago, Demitri_C said:

I have to say I really dislike May but I think she has handled the situation well with Russia. 

Apart from paying back the dodgy backhanders of course

[PieFacE]

Chances of boycotting the World Cup?

[Chindie]

4 minutes ago, PieFacE said:

Chances of boycotting the World Cup?

*Thunderbirds laugh gif*

Absolutely none.

[PieFacE]

2 minutes ago, Chindie said:

*Thunderbirds laugh gif*

Absolutely none.

Yay.

[blandy]

11 hours ago, peterms said:

How would he or anyine else know if he had been denied access?  No doubt he had a briefing.  What possible basis could he have for knowing if they had disclosed everything or withheld  crucial infornation?  Possibly a high-ranking whistleblower might have known if he had been duped and might have told him in the interests of truth and justice, but that's pretty unlikely, I think. 

Well, it goes like this. the prime minister/defence sec. contacts him and the other Privy councillors, to share the information DSTL, the Police, the Military etc. have gathered on the matter. On the specifics of the chemical weapon used in the attack. It would be likely, I think, that a senior representative(s) of those agencies would also be present , or at least available via link to answer questions, or to respond to questions later. Now if the sum total of the evidence regarding the substance available to JC and the others was "trust me it was the russians", what do you think Corbyn would have said in Parliament - would he perhaps have mentioned that the information shared with him was, at this stage, extremely sparse/lacking, or that "as the PM knows, I have requested access to the detailed  findings but this has not been provided by the PM" or some such. So assuming JC was able to use his critical faculties, I think he'd know whether he'd been denied access, or provided with inadequate information, don't you?

His response in parliament suggested strongly that he was given a full picture, particularly as some of what he said was clearly targetted at the weaker areas of May's own statement.

Quote

..to take the position that they have been demonstrated to have lied to us on matters which caused a million deaths, and therefore we should not simply take on trust their future pronouncements, is not at all ridiculous.

 Who is "they" Tony Blair and George Bush? they're gone (fortunately). But regardless, it's fine to be sceptical and to want clear evidence of a claimed threat such as WMDs. It's less fine to to do a Trump and say/imply (as potential future pm, God forbid) "I don't trust DSTL and the Police and the Army and etc..." It's a bad stance. Again, if he doesn't feel he has seen sufficient evidence, the better look would be to ask for more from the Gov't of the day and to point out where the evidence is lacking, in his view. Robin Cook did that very well overthe iraq dossier stuff.

Quote

The small boys also stole stuff.  There was a breakdown of control of all sorts of military equipment (it was so well recognised that it was even the theme of a Bond film whose name I forget).  That happened.  And of course others made all sorts of stuff.  We know Israel does, we are told Syria does, we found out Iraq did (and we helped them; as the old joke goes, we  have the receipts).  And lots more.  To suggest that there is a compound which is made from agricultural supplies and yet is so unique in either its components or its process stretches the imagination beyond reason - unless experts can demonstrate, not just assert, a case to the contrary.

We and they tried and continue to try to destabilise each other.  Surely that is beyond dispute?

When we achieved a temporary advantage in this, there was a severe disruption to all sorts of things in Russia, affecting lifespan, income distribution, disease, nuclear safety, the balance of power in English football, and all sorts of things.  It has been claimed that control of very dangerous substances was also affected, and that seems plausible to me.

I think it was very clearly implied, and her comments wouldn't make sense if you thought she was talking about 30 years ago.  Do you not think so?

I feel your argument reverts to "He's a bad 'un, so he done it".  Yes, he is a bad 'un, but he's not exactly unique in the international community in this regard,  and he may or may not have done it.  Let's have a bit more searching inquiry, supported by publicly available evidence.

If there was a breakdown of security and nasty stuff got nicked by whoever, and has got into the hands of whoever, who subsequently were able to sneak it into the UK, use it on these two Russian victims, with sufficinet expertise so as to not get killed themselves and to avoid any detection, then perhaps they would be a highly capable sort of "whoever". But if that's the case, and it's effectively a ready excuse for a Russian face saving - "yeah, there was some theft 25 years ago and a small quantity...." so that before asserting an outright denial as soon as the story broke and before May's speech accusing the UK of making it up, doing the attack oursleves..blah blah  they might have said "we'll respond when we've seen the evidence" and maybe even off to assist. But Russia was on the attck immediately the story broke. Both in their media and by their diplomats. Almost like it was co-ordinated.

I've revisited May's comments and there's no clear implication she was talking about only a recent possible theft of this stuff. If anything it's the opposite.

Re the "he's a bad 'un so he done it" - that's not really my argument. I don't know who did it. But there are very, very much stronger grounds for thinking it extremely probable to have been the Russians than for anyone else. I think "Almost certainly  it was the Russians" is about right and that's pretty much what May said. There's the chemical itself,  the motive, the long lamentable past record of this kind of thing , the level of expertise, if that's the right word, to conduct the attack, the timing and so on.

[blandy]

12 hours ago, peterms said:

I found this interesting

Quote

The Novichok Story Is Indeed Another Iraqi WMD ScamTo summarise: 

1) Porton Down has acknowledged in publications it has never seen any Russian “novichoks”. The UK government has absolutely no “fingerprint” information such as impurities that can safely attribute this substance to Russia.
2) Until now, neither Porton Down nor the world’s experts at the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) were convinced “Novichoks” even exist.
3) The UK is refusing to provide a sample to the OPCW.
4) “Novichoks” were specifically designed to be able to be manufactured from common ingredients on any scientific bench. The Americans dismantled and studied the facility that allegedly developed them. It is completely untrue only the Russians could make them, if anybody can.
5) The “Novichok” programme was in Uzbekistan not in Russia. Its legacy was inherited by the Americans during their alliance with Karimov, not by the Russians.

With a great many thanks to sources who cannot be named at this moment.

 

That's absolutely lamentable.

An argument that is along the lines of "I can't possibly have any Baked beans, because baked beans are made in Wigan and I'm in Preston and anyway the dastardly Bolton folk have all the beans" is particularly rubbish.

[Xann]

[NurembergVillan]

What odds are we looking at for an actual "war" here?

In the modern era, this is less likely to involve tanks and planes (I would think) and more likely to involve the Russians **** up all of our systems e.g. NHS patient information, banking, infrastructure.  Or is it?

[Chindie]

3 minutes ago, NurembergVillan said:

What odds are we looking at for an actual "war" here?

In the modern era, this is less likely to involve tanks and planes (I would think) and more likely to involve the Russians **** up all of our systems e.g. NHS patient information, banking, infrastructure.  Or is it?

There isn't going to be 'war' over the poisoning of a spy.

There will be posturing, which we've already started. The Russians are already playing cyber games and this won't change that. It might make some of it more obvious (the social media shit has ramped up already).

But in real terms nothing changes. There's too much else at stake for the poisoning of a spy and some collateral to do much in real terms.

And everyone knows it.

[tonyh29]

10 minutes ago, NurembergVillan said:

What odds are we looking at for an actual "war" here?

In the modern era, this is less likely to involve tanks and planes (I would think) and more likely to involve the Russians **** up all of our systems e.g. NHS patient information, banking, infrastructure.  Or is it?

0%

Syria and Ukraine haven't escalated to war so I can't see it happening over this .... they will expel some of our spooks , Putin will go a shoot a bear after he's wrestled with it for 30 mins , then we will go back to our MP's being paid to appear on RT  and  Kim Jun Un being the bogeyman once again

Edited March 15, 2018 by tonyh29

[snowychap]

30 minutes ago, NurembergVillan said:

What odds are we looking at for an actual "war" here?

Over this? As others have said, I can't see it. Where would 'it' happen? How?

I think, though, that we ought to be very wary about assuming that things will just carry on in (relative) peace between first world nations. As mentioned in other threads, people tend to see the current world as what is 'normal' and tend to think that this is therefore the way things will always be. We don't need to go back very far in history to know that this isn't true.

There's a level of bellicosity in the language being used that seems to be a step up from the kind of thing that we've heard in a long time (I listened to some of Gavin Williamson's speech this morning and it left me in little doubt that he's the kind of guy who would be just itching to deploy troops somewhere on a giant scale).

Add in increased nationalism almost everywhere, a bucketful of protectionist policies, demands for hard(er) borders, demands for increased military spending, increased authoritarian policies, demands for 'strong leaders', various proxy wars, &c. and I don't think it looks great for the future.

I still believe that a conflict between serious military powers is very likely in the next couple of decades and what will spark it will probably be something trivial.

Edited March 15, 2018 by snowychap

[Seat68]

I felt for supporters going over to Russia for the world cup, with rhetoric like this I feel the violence will be ramped up, if it could be.

[Chindie]

May visiting Salisbury today.

Would it be too much to ask to have someone just leave her stood next to the bench for a while? Or in Zizzis?

[mjmooney]

Quote

The same people who assured you that Saddam Hussein had WMD’s now assure you Russian “novochok” nerve agents are being wielded by Vladimir Putin to attack people on British soil. As with the Iraqi WMD dossier, it is essential to comb the evidence very finely. A vital missing word from Theresa May’s statement yesterday was “only”. She did not state that the nerve agent used was manufactured ONLY by Russia. She rather stated this group of nerve agents had been “developed by” Russia. Antibiotics were first developed by a Scotsman, but that is not evidence that all antibiotics are today administered by Scots.

The “novochok” group of nerve agents – a very loose term simply for a collection of new nerve agents the Soviet Union were developing fifty years ago – will almost certainly have been analysed and reproduced by Porton Down. That is entirely what Porton Down is there for. It used to make chemical and biological weapons as weapons, and today it still does make them in small quantities in order to research defences and antidotes. After the fall of the Soviet Union Russian chemists made a lot of informationavailable on these nerve agents. And one country which has always manufactured very similar persistent nerve agents is Israel. This Foreign Policy magazine (a very establishment US publication) article on Israel‘s chemical and biological weapon capability is very interesting indeed. I will return to Israel later in this article.

Incidentally, novachok is not a specific substance but a class of new nerve agents. Sources agree they were designed to be persistent, and of an order of magnitude stronger than sarin or VX. That is rather hard to square with the fact that thankfully nobody has died and those possibly in contact just have to wash their clothes.

From Putin’s point of view, to assassinate Skripal now seems to have very little motivation. If the Russians have waited eight years to do this, they could have waited until after their World Cup. The Russians have never killed a swapped spy before. Just as diplomats, British and otherwise, are the most ardent upholders of the principle of diplomatic immunity, so security service personnel everywhere are the least likely to wish to destroy a system which can be a key aspect of their own personal security; quite literally spy swaps are their “Get Out of Jail Free” card. You don’t undermine that system – probably terminally – without very good reason.

It is worth noting that the “wicked” Russians gave Skripal a far lighter jail sentence than an American equivalent would have received. If a member of US Military Intelligence had sold, for cash to the Russians, the names of hundreds of US agents and officers operating abroad, the Americans would at the very least jail the person for life, and I strongly suspect would execute them. Skripal just received a jail sentence of 18 years, which is hard to square with the narrative of implacable vindictiveness against him. If the Russians had wanted to make an example, that was the time.

It is much more probable that the reason for this assassination attempt refers to something recent or current, than to spying twenty years ago. Were I the British police, I would inquire very closely into Orbis Intelligence.

There is no doubt that Skripal was feeding secrets to MI6 at the time that Christopher Steele was an MI6 officer in Moscow, and at the the time that Pablo Miller, another member of Orbis Intelligence, was also an MI6 officer in Russia and directly recruiting agents. It is widely reported on the web and in US media that it was Miller who first recruited Skripal. My own ex-MI6 sources tell me that is not quite true as Skripal was “walk-in”, but that Miller certainly was involved in running Skripal for a while. Sadly Pablo Miller’s LinkedIn profile has recently been deleted, but it is again widely alleged on the web that it showed him as a consultant for Orbis Intelligence and a consultant to the FCO and – wait for it – with an address in Salisbury. If anyone can recover that Linkedin entry do get in touch, though British Government agencies will have been active in the internet scrubbing.

It was of course Christopher Steele and Orbis Intelligence who produced for the Clinton camp the sensationalist dossier on Trump links with Russia – including the story of Trump paying to be urinated on by Russian prostitutes – that is a key part of the “Russiagate” affair gripping the US political classes. The extraordinary thing about this is that the Orbis dossier is obvious nonsense which anybody with a professional background can completely demolish, as I did here. Steele’s motive was, like Skripal’s in selling his secrets, cash pure and simple. Steele is a charlatan who knocked up a series of allegations that are either wildly improbable, or would need a high level source access he could not possibly get in today’s Russia, or both. He told the Democrats what they wish to hear and his audience – who had and still have no motivation to look at it critically – paid him highly for it.

I do not know for certain that Pablo Miller helped knock together the Steele dossier on Trump, but it seems very probable given he also served for MI6 in Russia and was working for Orbis. And it seems to me even more probable that Sergei Skripal contributed to the Orbis Intelligence dossier on Trump. Steele and Miller cannot go into Russia and run sources any more, and never would have had access as good as their dossier claims, even in their MI6 days. The dossier was knocked up for huge wodges of cash from whatever they could cobble together. Who better to lend a little corroborative verisimilitude in these circumstances than their old source Skripal?

Skripal was at hand in the UK, and allegedly even close to Miller in Salisbury. He could add in the proper acronym for a Russian committee here or the name of a Russian official there, to make it seem like Steele was providing hard intelligence. Indeed, Skripal’s outdated knowledge might explain some of the dossier’s more glaring errors.

But the problem with double agents like Skripal, who give intelligence for money, is that they can easily become triple agents and you never know when a better offer is going to come along. When Steele produced his dodgy dossier, he had no idea it would ever become so prominent and subject to so much scrutiny. Steele is fortunate in that the US Establishment is strongly motivated not to scrutinise his work closely as their one aim is to “get” Trump. But with the stakes very high, having a very loose cannon as one of the dossier’s authors might be most inconvenient both for Orbis and for the Clinton camp.

If I was the police, I would look closely at Orbis Intelligence.

To return to Israel. Israel has the nerve agents. Israel has Mossad which is extremely skilled at foreign assassinations. Theresa May claimed Russian propensity to assassinate abroad as a specific reason to believe Russia did it. Well Mossad has an even greater propensity to assassinate abroad. And while I am struggling to see a Russian motive for damaging its own international reputation so grieviously, Israel has a clear motivation for damaging the Russian reputation so grieviously. Russian action in Syria has undermined the Israeli position in Syria and Lebanon in a fundamental way, and Israel has every motive for damaging Russia’s international position by an attack aiming to leave the blame on Russia.

Both the Orbis and Israeli theories are speculations. But they are no more a speculation, and no more a conspiracy theory, than the idea that Vladimir Putin secretly sent agents to Salisbury to attack Skripal with a secret nerve agent. I can see absolutely no reason to believe that is a more valid speculation than the others at this point.

I am alarmed by the security, spying and armaments industries’ frenetic efforts to stoke Russophobia and heat up the new cold war. I am especially alarmed at the stream of cold war warrior “experts” dominating the news cycles. I write as someone who believes that agents of the Russian state did assassinate Litvinenko, and that the Russian security services carried out at least some of the apartment bombings that provided the pretext for the brutal assault on Chechnya. I believe the Russian occupation of Crimea and parts of Georgia is illegal. On the other hand, in Syria Russia has saved the Middle East from domination by a new wave of US and Saudi sponsored extreme jihadists.

The naive view of the world as “goodies” and “baddies”, with our own ruling class as the good guys, is for the birds. I witnessed personally in Uzbekistan the willingness of the UK and US security services to accept and validate intelligence they knew to be false in order to pursue their policy objectives. We should be extremely sceptical of their current anti-Russian narrative. There are many possible suspects in this attack. 

Craig Murray