ForumGarden

Currently the working hypothesis is that it is connected to the attack on the Skripals - left over product dumped perhaps since Novichok is not common - but they have an open mind. That's according to the Chief Constable of Wiltshire.

I don't think this was a deliberate attack by the Russians. But I hope it has opened up new avenues of enquiries for the Police - Amesbury is near Salisbury but had not previously been connected with the Skripal attack that I'm aware of. Also, the estate where the two lived is brand new - still being built according to one account I saw. Four months ago when the Skripals were poisoned it was much more of a building site. Did the suspected Russian agents involved think they'd got rid of evidence into the foundations of a building but miscalculated somehow?



The Skripals survived but there are no guarantees these two will. It's deadly stuff.



Also, I don't think it was done by the UK gov't to cover up Trump's visit, low opinion though I have of this gov't. I mention this because Putin's little helpers have already been suggesting this elsewhere online and bearing in mind the belief of some that the Skripals were poisoned to cover up bad local election results for the gov't. (Especially dubious since the election results for the gov't weren't that bad...)



Trump visits here soon and then goes on to see Putin. That suddenly got a lot more interesting.

One victim dead, the other expected to die soon. Some indication they got a big dose. The police are desperately searching for whatever it was they touched or picked up. It's early days yet and this is going to take time. It's curious that the poisonings took effect something like 6 or 8 hours apart: does that mean she picked something up then passed it to him later?



People are starting to look at other cases as well. The way Novichok kills you is by causing all your internal organs to stop working at once (more or less). It's beginning to appear that a large number of Putin's enemies died suddenly and mysteriously with all their internal organs just shutting down...

edit: That isn't a very accurate description of how Novichok works but it doesn't really matter for my point, which is that these victims died with symptoms which are NOW starting to look very like Novichok poisoning. It was simply not possible to recognise these deaths as potential Novichok poisoning until we had the first 5 known cases here to compare them with.

I've also seen a report saying the remaining victim has taken a turn for the better so maybe he will yet survive.

It seems that he's going to survive and the day after he was able to speak to police they found the container that seems to have held the poison.

It's possible that this is a major breakthrough: there could be DNA traces on the bottle or other forensic evidence, they might be able to locate where it was when picked up which adds locations and possible suspects and they might even be able to tie it definitively to the same batch that poisoned the Skripals.

Or it might not be.



But it's definitely progress.

We have a list of suspects apparently, according to the Press. It's not been officially confirmed. I'm not sure if this is a lack of communication between the various departments or a deliberate tactic. Anyway, at least 4 and one a woman is what I hear. It's not clear at present there's any DNA evidence, or anything else from the bottle that is firmly linked to them, this list is based on looking at hours of video around Salisbury and Amesbury and airports.



It seems that the Novichok was in something that looked like a perfume bottle and the woman dabbed it on her wrist to smell it...

So, not even necessarily a deliberate assassination attempt now. The Skripals may have also been inadvertent victims as well.

What do you mean, "now"? I've never claimed that the second pair were deliberately poisoned and neither has anyone else that I know of. I think your defence of Putin in the Skripals case is deluded and your trust in Russian propaganda pathetic. And you are a brexiter, happily doing Putin's work and defending his murders.

Really, why don't you move there? You don't trust our establishment but you trust theirs. Leaving would be the greatest service you could do this country.

The last I've heard from the Police is that they now believe there were two teams involved in the assassination attempt on the Skripals, one team that came and planted the poison and the second that actually did the deed. There was a hint that the poison Charley Rowley found was in unopened packaging which would imply the first team planted at least two containers of poison and maybe more which is I think a concern at present. There was also a suggestion that Rowley can't remember where he actually found the package. I understand it's not uncommon for people who've had any sort of serious traumatic shock to have some memory loss, especially of the time around the shock.

If the container was not the one used in the Skripals' poisoning there won't be DNA evidence linking to that murder, probably, so it's not the breakthrough I'd hoped it might be. If they can find the packaging that might yield some clues to the first team who planted the poison and who could I would guess be charged as accessories to murder.

Although it's gone quiet in public the Authorities have chucked the kitchen sink at this one as far as I can tell. I doubt we'll ever be able to put the suspects in court because I doubt we'll ever get our hands on them - they've probably been awarded medals. But I have been quite impressed with the work the Police have done especially with the video analysis that has given us some real suspects.



The other thing that has to be regarded as a big success in all this is that 3 out of the 4 poisoned - with a truly deadly nerve agent - were saved. That's one heck of an achievement by the doctors, nurses and scientists involved.

edit: I've also heard a motive for the murder attempt on Skripal Snr beyond that he undoubtedly was an agent for the UK (there is a convention that you don't kill exchanged agents): That it was Putin sending a message about his power and reach to his own people before the Presidential elections. Shrug. Possible.

There is also the question that seems to have been kept very quiet about his investigating the callusion between Cambridge Analytica & SCL, relating to Tory Party Donations.

Admittedly there doesn't appear to be any hard evidence, but that is hardly surprising as they would be doing their best to cover any evidence up - even if it came to disposing of the person doing the investigation.

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/opini ... ssion=true

I'm no friend of the Tories but it was the Leave campaign and campaigners that were mostly referred to in the article. The possible hint was that Skripal Snr was investigating links between the Kremlin and the Leave Campaign and is therefore another possible motive for Putin to have him killed (if they knew and it's potentially worrying if they did). The writer rather glosses over that in his eagerness to get to the possible links with the Panama Papers.

We've got whistleblowers from Cambridge Analytica talking about illegal data harvesting and money. The article is very, very clear about the links between vote leave and CA and vote leave and the Russians. I'm not sure of the date of the article (other than it is after March this year) and therefore what the writer may or may not have known when writing. The Panama papers are a separate scandal which might involve some of the same people and therefore pull the two scandals together. But at present we have no evidence. We can see from the splits in the Tories that Grieve and Soubry for example would never have gone along with anything Brexit related and therefore if there is a plot it involves only a clique in the Tories - the brexiters, who are also the far right.

It is however much better evidence than anything RT says. And I should remind you that as a brexiter you are also acting for Putin, there's no doubt he wants Brexit and at least tried to influence the result of the referendum. The only disagreement is over the extent he succeeded. If it were to turn out that Johnson was also acting for Putin in the Panama Papers case that just makes him a much more important agent than you.

Emerdata will bear watching. Interesting too that this goes quite near to Trump, also. The far right is internationally organised, we've known that for many years, but it seems they've gone to a new level in the last 5 years or so.



It's the political extremes that want Brexit. The far right and the far left are in favour. The political centre ground - the Lib Dems, the Tory left and Labour right - oppose it.

Well, I originally came here to post this as there has not been an update for a while and there's a bit to cover. Then I saw the news about Bruv and rather lost the desire. But then I realised that Bruv would absolutely want me to get on and post so I am.

I hadn't realised quite how behind I'd got on this one sooo. We had the Police name the two suspects: Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov. The names were suspected to be aliases but the hunting through CCTV had paid off and the men were tracked from Gatwick to London, then to Salisbury the day before the attack, then back to London and then the day of the attack back to Salisbury, with a shot of them near Mr Skripal's home. The same day they flew out of Heathrow to Moscow.

Initially there was mockery from state sponsored Russian tv. A denial of all knowledge of these men - fairly standard stuff from Moscow and it seems pretty much all Russia accepted Moscow's line and were laughing at the Brits. But then there was a surprising twist: Moscow announced it had FOUND the two men and "hoped" they would come forward to clear themselves.

Sure enough a day or so later they were interviewed on RT which I can't link at present but

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=al ... ORM=VDRVRV

If you want to paste it into your search. A lot of it is fairly tedious stuff but the gist is that they originally intended to have some fun in London but were told about the amazing Cathedral Spire and old clock in Salisbury and just had to visit. Twice. In a 3 night stay in the UK, based in London. No cctv shots of the men at the Cathedral have been released by the British Police.

Over here people just laughed at the explanation. It was found to be utterly unbelievable. What has changed though, apparently, is the attitude in Russia. From having mostly gone along with Moscow's explanation that this was all the Brits making a noise to get at Russia or distract from their own problems it now seems that many Russians, if not most, also found the interview utterly unconvincing. I do have to hand it to the Editor of RT, as well: she was not the sympathetic interviewer helping them with their cover story that they apparently expected.



Below is a link to the story about the Russian reaction to the interview:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45591103

From the linked story:

Gennady Gudkov had always suspected the Salisbury attack was the work of Russian agents. When the former KGB officer saw the men on TV - straight after President Vladimir Putin had called on the pair to appear and explain themselves - any lingering doubts disappeared.

"It would clearly have been better for the men to stay silent," Mr Gudkov argued, in an office decorated with medals testifying to his own years in service. "All thinking people in Russia are asking 'what was that? what was it for?'"

He is now sure the men are agents of Russian military intelligence, the GRU.

"What was Putin thinking?" asks former KGB officer Gennady Gudkov

His own sources suggest the attack on Sergei Skripal, a GRU officer-turned-traitor, was a bungled attempt to impress President Putin by an agency pushing for more influence and power."

The article goes on to suggest that the interview was so ridiculous that a line has been crossed. Russians are now starting to mock Moscow rather than being cowed by it's sinister power. But if Putin is being mocked, I doubt he'll take it well. We'll see.

The other thing that I've just maybe begun to notice is that aren't there starting to be a lot of accidents involving Russians? There was a plane of theirs shot down by the Syrians by mistake and that wasn't the first thing that's happened recently, I think. Worth keeping an eye out perhaps. There was some talk of concerted action in response to these poisonings (they pissed off more than the Brits) and I just wonder...

edit: Oh I see we can now just paste links directly into our posts. Nice. The other thing is that we now have a Russian in a German hospital who is now believed to have been exposed to a poison while in a Russian jail: the Pussy Riot member who invaded the pitch during the Football World Cup Final. Putin DID say he would destroy anyone who embarrassed Russian during the World Cup...

I do hope that despite current political tensions, the Germans have passed on samples from the poor chap (who is still apparently confused and not himself) to our people at Porton Down who are getting a lot of experience with this sort of thing.

I still find it too much of a co-incidence that such things 'just happen' to come to light when the Tories need to do some flag waving. Last time it was when the Local Elections were imminent & the Tories were heading for an embarassing defeat. Now it looks as if another Snap Election is in the offing. To top that, there were reports on the BBC about some RAF Fighters scrambled to escort a couple of Russian Fighters who were in International Air Space, within about 50 miles of approaching UK Air Space, even though at no time did they ever enter UK Air Space, or look as if they intended to. Well, how dare they enter International Air Space. For that matter, how dare the RAF entre the same International Air Space. The ploy of using Patriotism to divert attention from a Government's own failings at time of Elections is an old, tried & tested formula. I guess it's a case of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".