Former Russian double agent seriously ill in Salisbury.
- Thread starter Malevolence
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Interesting development.
dunno, I think they're just being cautious... plenty of Russians over here are wealthy not exactly friends of Putin
And all of them with connections to the Russian mafia.....
Caporegime
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Getting interesting now. Told us not to mess with a nuclear power. Do they seem to forget, we are one too, as are the many countries standing beside us?
That seems to be fake news. And the articles with the same sensational headlines fail to provide the video source for the claim, in a "Take our word for it" style.
The point she (Maria Zakharova) was making (assuming the translation in the following video is accurate) is that it is very irresponsible for London, which is the capital of a major nuclear power, to issue a 24 hour ultimatum to anyone (with unspecified repercussions if the ultimatum is not met).
So maybe it is the UK leadership that forgets it is a nuclear power, and to be conscious of how such ultimatums come across, in combination with a multitude of threats made by high-profile figures, including cyber-attacks on Russia and the like. And the fever-pitched public goading of Theresa May and insisting it's a make or break time to show whether she is weak or strong.
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Associate
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It's obv
It's obvious that we aren't directly (or indirectly) threatening nuclear action.
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If Russia placed the same ultimatum on the UK, there'd be plenty yelling about the irresponsibility of a nuclear power doing so. One could only make such a statement if they never put themselves in the shoes of the other side, as an exercise in understanding. Imagine this for a moment - that Russia might know they didn't do it, and they receive this ridiculous ultimatum. They ask for samples of the evidence, and are told they cannot have them. How should they feel about the UK then? "Oh those adorable, harmless Brits with their honest, always noble never-scheming MI6 and Foreign Office"?
No, actually it very much isn't. It's just one of several possibilities at this stage. It could be true, or it could not be. And neither you nor I know it. It's called belief. And beliefs affect religious and non-religious alike.
That's your perception. I don't doubt that you believe you are being honest about it. But I have to wonder what you know about topics like Victoria Nuland and State Department and CIA involvement in the Ukraine coup, and CIA authorization and support for civil war against the Donbass people instead of patience and talks with them to formulate a Ukraine acceptable to both sides (pro-EU/pro-Russia), and the disregard for decades of upsetting the ballistic missile balance (you can nuke me/I can nuke you) with anti-missile shields popping up all over the place close to Russia, the US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, the broken promise of the West (to Gorbachev) that NATO would not grow eastwards, UK/US support for ISIS and others in Syria, and a whole host of other issues which will concern Russia very much. Sanctions are typically a prelude to war or total submission, and Russia is unlikely to submit.
Declarations by ex-CIA directors admitting that the West also interferes in elections and arranges coups and the like, but it's different because "we are the good guys", are unlikely to reassure Russia, who are therefore the "bad guys".
How often is it (obvious) in this world full of lies? Do you know that the, or one of the, inventors of Novichok - Mirzayanov, has been living in the US since the 1990's? Do you believe that the UK government isn't lying about not having any biological weapons, when they lie so often (as do all governments) and that's something really high up the list that they would lie about? No, Russia aren't the only ones with the nerve agent.
Well if that is what would impress you, okay.
What would impress me is the prosecution allowing the defence to see the evidence with which the defendant is being accused, which would be rather more British (as in what once made Britain truly great, not the Perfidious Albion variety) than "haha you can't see it, guilty as accused and that's it." Imagine if you were tried like that just for shoplifting. You'd declare the fix was in. And this is far more serious (for the entire world not just the UK and Russia) than accusations of shoplifting.
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₽1 has been deposited into your account comrade.
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Of course they wouldn't. In fact, the plane carrying the sample back would probably get accidentally shot out of the sky by a Russian missile system manned by Russian military personal that were never there.
Caporegime
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Indeed, a 3rd party needs to look at a sample and even if they did Russia will probably claim it to be fake.
This story just gets more and more interesting as time goes on lol.
Assuming it was them they have played it masterfully, the guy they potentially wanted to target was hit though strangely not killed (yet), everyone knows it was probably them so anyone they wanted to be intimidated/scared will be intimidated/scared, Putin looks like a badass a few weeks before the election, our country looks like a bad guy for ignoring international laws/conventions and threatening them, there's a chance at least one top level team may not even show up to challenge for the world cup in Russia, and to top it all off our case is entirely circumstantial. I wish my government was able to execute plans as competently lol.
On the other hand, playing devils advocate, if it wasn't them then they must be very confused/worried right now as either some of their gas is missing/stolen and they have a major issue there or another party acquired the stockpiles from a former soviet state. Their problem being that without a sample of what type of agent was used they won't be able to identify it and have any hope of trying to trace it through records, so it would be impossible for them to prove their innocence or determine the guilty party.
Either way this is way cooler than any spy novel haha.
Assuming it was them they have played it masterfully, the guy they potentially wanted to target was hit though strangely not killed (yet), everyone knows it was probably them so anyone they wanted to be intimidated/scared will be intimidated/scared, Putin looks like a badass a few weeks before the election, our country looks like a bad guy for ignoring international laws/conventions and threatening them, there's a chance at least one top level team may not even show up to challenge for the world cup in Russia, and to top it all off our case is entirely circumstantial. I wish my government was able to execute plans as competently lol.
On the other hand, playing devils advocate, if it wasn't them then they must be very confused/worried right now as either some of their gas is missing/stolen and they have a major issue there or another party acquired the stockpiles from a former soviet state. Their problem being that without a sample of what type of agent was used they won't be able to identify it and have any hope of trying to trace it through records, so it would be impossible for them to prove their innocence or determine the guilty party.
Either way this is way cooler than any spy novel haha.
"Thank you sir. Are you having the usual yellowcake, or would you care to have a look at the sexed-up menu?"
Jumping the gun and missing the point - Britain ought to be seen to be doing the right thing. You know, to actually be "the good guys", a shining light to the rest of the world. Proper procedure and all that. Unless you're a my country right or wrong person, which ensures the country will be very wrong in a very short space of time, when there's enough of that type.
Would it be beyond our capabilities to manufacture? obviously would be a huge cover-up. R&D in this country is pretty good.
Soldato
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This bothers me:
How is it that international communication between governments is being carried out via Twitter. wtf
How is it that international communication between governments is being carried out via Twitter. wtf
It sure does have potential to be one of the most tangled webs ever.
We could potentially manufacture it, the issues however would be that to match the Soviet strains we would have to manufacture it in Uzbekistan at a facility the USA decommissioned/decontaminated for them nearly two decades ago, and AFAIK breed it from samples created by the USSR which have either been destroyed or are under lock and key in Russia.
So yeah we could make it, but it would be very easy to tell it was our own recipe.
I was implying not just manufacturing a variant but creating all the conditions to make it appear like a specific strain - assuming we had any idea what that looked like. We have some considerably advanced capabilities in this country.
Would be very difficult because the derivatives of Novichok will have specific signatures to their makeup, this is why the Russians will want a sample in the unlikely event they didn't do it so they can trace it to the revision/batch and determine what happened to it.
If we're exploring the hypothetical that we're trying to frame Russia then a far simpler solution for us would be to ask America for some of the Novichok stockpiles they "destroyed" in the early 00's, because let's be honest nobody is going to get rid of it all, could always come in useful someday.