And what do you think Russia would do if British hit squads started operating over there? Shrug?
Former Russian double agent seriously ill in Salisbury.
- Thread starter Malevolence
- Start date
And what do you think Russia would do if British hit squads started operating over there? Shrug?
British hit squads won't operate on Russian soil. The government hasn't even got the balls to execute our own traitors on UK soil let alone in ones in Russia. Russia knows this and it's rightly perceived as weakness by them, hence I think they carry out these high profile hits without to much fear.
What do you think would happen to some Jihadists chopping off a Russian soldiers head on the streets of Moscow?
Except SAS kill teams are active throughout conflict zones...
You see we're not like Russia, when they're not in warzones we subject people to a fair trial and the due course of the law.
They'd probably take at as a green light and retaliate with a bigger response. That has always been there way.
Someone who is swapped (and pardoned) should be safe, if that is no longer the case then we need to change our policy towards Russia. If it can happen here then it could happen anywhere in europe or even the US. This isn't just a UK problem.
Precisely.
I think we may threaten to go further than that. Apparently Boris Johnson is considering not sending officials to Russian for the World Cup!
That'll teach them.
Soldato
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Its surprising how many of them there are around I've met a few of them too some of them very unpleasant characters.
No exceptions? Gareth Williams and the ensuing ludicrous cover-up springs to mind. Let's not forget David Kelly, either. Sure, someone else may have killed them, and we'll likely never know the truth about it. But MI5 is authorized to commit crimes on UK territory, and everything about this remains hush. Interesting how a fair number of spy/ex-spy poisonings and deaths take place in Britain though. If they are telling the truth, then it means they're pretty incompetent, what with Russian hit-squads waltzing in and out all the time taking out whoever they like, without MI5 preventing it, or presenting conclusive evidence of it, after the fact. But that would be a very big "if".
Not sure i care about a Russian Spy, not sure what it helps Putin achieve either, clearly he wasn't doing anything spectacular and all his information was already in the hands of MI6... his value was literally zero.
So either its an old hit job that a gangster ****** up and probably wont be getting paid for it, or a certain government wants to hide how bad Brexit is going by throwing a worthless asset under the bus (You could say this was a conspiracy, but honestly i don't care, its about as low as this government can go and could easily stoop towards).
I'm more likely to go for the bad hitjob, but eh... i would not put it past a ominous oaf that enjoyed the cold war attitude that is the great Boris.
So either its an old hit job that a gangster ****** up and probably wont be getting paid for it, or a certain government wants to hide how bad Brexit is going by throwing a worthless asset under the bus (You could say this was a conspiracy, but honestly i don't care, its about as low as this government can go and could easily stoop towards).
I'm more likely to go for the bad hitjob, but eh... i would not put it past a ominous oaf that enjoyed the cold war attitude that is the great Boris.
They will likely see it as a deterrent thing.
I highly doubt it, Putin isn't dumb, about the only value it could have is in the election "Me strong, me kill traitor" type of authoritarian brutishness.
Otherwise, he'd have just flat out killed all the MI6 agents working in Russia... but the value of them being alive is too great, mind you China killed all of America's informants when they found out and it cost America years of unknown's... so i dunno it's a strange and magnanimous world.
If people can go around being traitors to their country unpunished that sets a dangerous precedent and makes them even more susceptible to being bribed, etc. especially in a country like Russia where even those nearer the top are often not that well off or in that ensured a position.
This, they could be basically saying "no matter what we say in public, no matter the standards of things like prisoner exchanges, no matter how long, we will kill you and those you care about if you cross us".
It's worth noting that the Russians have been using this sort of terror against people who are just critical of the government (it's amazing how many journalists have had nasty accidents), politicians who have run against Putin, or those who have spoken out about corruption and human rights abuses.
Ah oops, forgot about Russians themselves... I guess so.
But... if they did it after all those years of Soviet hell, then clearly it doesn't work, maybe short term however it might scare people i suppose, so maybe Putin is about to make some orders soon that would be to Russia's detriment to be leaked?
Yeah but rarely a deterrent is completely so - even with North Korea there are those that are completely brainwashed into the world outside being horrific and worse than their worst nightmares and yet are in such a desperate position they will take a chance on that on any hope of a better life.
Doubtful, because they'd know what he'd known anyway, and we'd know they'd know so it's a losing game there.
Like with a lot of these assassinations (a lot of them happen in Turkey btw), it'll be some Ex-FSB gangster doing a paid for job, Putin's Russia is more like a mercenary realm when it comes to it's military actions. (Ukraine is confirmation of this, it's deviously advantageous it would appear)
Of course the UK doesn't actually care that much because our way of life depends on Russian money as much as it depends on the child killing Saudi Prince that's just arrived, the idea that the UK is a bastion of justice is wearing dreadfully thin.
Like with a lot of these assassinations (a lot of them happen in Turkey btw), it'll be some Ex-FSB gangster doing a paid for job, Putin's Russia is more like a mercenary realm when it comes to it's military actions. (Ukraine is confirmation of this, it's deviously advantageous it would appear)
Of course the UK doesn't actually care that much because our way of life depends on Russian money as much as it depends on the child killing Saudi Prince that's just arrived, the idea that the UK is a bastion of justice is wearing dreadfully thin.
Yeah - gives them a lot of deniability :s
Not quite, while most nerve agents are created by state actors all you really need to create the older ones (I.E Sarin) is access to a lab and a very high level of competency in chemistry. The real reason we know there is a good chance this was probably state backed is because they haven't identified the specific nerve agent yet which could mean it's something rare/new.
It is a bit of a conundrum isn't it, as some experts have pointed out assassinating a non-active British spy on British soil would be a first for Russia, and after he was returned to us in exchange for one of their spies it would be quite damaging for them to take him out as it would cast shadow on that process in future (spies involved are usually bulletproof after such deals).
However the BBC have reported he was seen regularly meeting with a suited British gentleman in recent months who spoke fluent Russian. It could be that MI6/Russia/third party were trying to get him to come out of retirement and Russia/MI6/etc took him out as a potential threat.
Hell it could even be a revenge attack from a relative of somebody he got killed or imprisoned while working for the UK or USSR.
Pretty much all we have to go on at this point is speculation.