It was happy to see Yulia alive and looking reasonably well yesterday, if understandably stressed. Notably, and in sharp contrast to Litvinenko, she leveled no accusations at Russia or anybody else for her poisoning. In Russian she spoke quite naturally. Of the Russian Embassy she said very simply “I am not ready, I do not want their help”. Strangely this is again translated in the Reuters subtitles by the strangulated officialese of “I do not wish to avail myself of their services”, as originally stated in the unnatural Metropolitan Police statement issued on her behalf weeks ago.
“I do not wish to avail myself of their services” is simply not a translation of what she says in Russian and totally misses the “I am not ready” opening phrase of that sentence. My conclusion is that Yulia’s statement was written by a British official and then translated to Russian for her to speak, rather than the other way round. Also that rather than translate what she said in Russian themselves for the subtitles, Reuters have subtitled using a British government script they have been given.
It would of course have been much more convincing had Sergei also been present. Duress cannot be ruled out when he is held by the British authorities. I remain extremely suspicious that, at the very first chance she got in hospital, Yulia managed to get hold of a telephone (we don’t know how, it was not her own and she has not had access to one since) and phone her cousin Viktoria, yet since then the Skripals have made no attempt to contact their family in Russia. That includes no contact to Sergei’s aged mum, Yulia’s grandmother, who Viktoria cares for. Sergei normally calles his mother – who is 89 – regularly. This lack of contact is a worrying sign that the Skripals may be prevented from free communication to the outside world. Yulia’s controlled and scripted performance makes that more rather than less likely.
It is to me particularly concerning that Yulia does not seem to have social media access. The security services have the ability to give her internet risk free through impenetrable VPN. But they appear not to have done that.
We know a little more about the Salisbury attack now:
Nobody – not Porton Down, not the OPCW – has been able to state that the nerve agent found was of Russian manufacture, a fact which the MSM continues to disgracefully fudge with “developed in Russia” phrasing. As is now well known and was reported by Iran in scientific literature, Iran synthesised five novichoks recently. More importantly, the German spying agency BND obtained novichok in the 1990s and it was studied and synthesised in several NATO countries, almost certainly including the UK and USA.
In 1998, chemical formulae for novichok were introduced into the United States NIST National Institute of Standards and Technologies Mass Spectrometry Library database by U.S. Army Edgewood Chemical and Biological Defense Command, but the entry was later deleted. In 2009 Hillary Clinton instructed US diplomats to feign ignorance of novichoks, as revealed by the last paragraph of this Wikileaks released diplomatic cable.
Most telling was the Sky News interview with the head of Porton Down. Interviewer Paul Kelso repeatedly pressed Aitkenhead directly on whether the novichok could have come from Porton Down. Aitkenhead replies “There is no way, anything like that could…leave these four walls. We deal with a number of toxic substances in the work that we do, we’ve got the highest levels of security and controls”. Asked again twice, he each times says the security is so tight “the substance” could not have come from Porton Down. What Aitkenhead does NOT say is “of course it could not have come from here, we have never made it”. Indeed Aitkenhead’s repeated assertion that the security would never have let it out, is tantamount to an admission Porton Down does produce novichok.
If somebody asked you whether the lion that savaged somebody came from your garden, would you reply “Don’t be stupid, I don’t have a lion in my garden” or would you say, repeatedly, “Of course not, I have a very strong lion cage?”. Here you can see Mr Aitkenhead explain repeatedly he has a big lion cage, from 2’25” in.
So the question of where the nerve agent was made remains unresolved. The MSM has continually attempted to lie about this and affirm that all novichok is Russian made. The worst of corporate and state journalism in the UK was exposed when they took the OPCW’s report that it confirmed the findings of Porton Down and presented that as confirming the Johnson/May assertion that it was Russia, whereas the findings of Porton Down were actually – as the Aitkenhead interview stated categorically – that they could not say where it was made.
The other relatively new development is the knowledge that Skripal had not retired but was active for MI6 on gigs briefing overseas intelligence agencies about Russia. This did not increase his threat to Russia, as he told everything he knows a decade ago. But it could provide an element of annoyance that would indeed increase Russian official desire to punish him further.
But the fact he was still very much active has a far greater significance. The government slapped a D(SMA) notice on the identity of Pablo Miller, Skripal’s former MI6 handler who lives close by in Salisbury and who worked for Christopher Steele’s Orbis Intelligence at the time that Orbis produced the extremely unreliable dossier on Trump/Russia. The fact that Skripal had not retired but was still briefing on Russia, to me raises to a near certainty the likelihood that Skripal worked with Miller on the Trump dossier.
I have to say that, as a former Ambassador in the former Soviet Union trained in intelligence analysis and familiar with MI6 intelligence out of Moscow, I agree with every word of this professional dissection of the Orbis Trump dossier by Paul Roderick Gregory, irrespective of Gregory’s politics. In particular this paragraph, which Gregory wrote more than a year before the Salisbury attack, certainly applies to much of the dossier.
I have picked out just a few excerpts from the Orbis report. It was written, in my opinion, not by an ex British intelligence officer but by a Russian trained in the KGB tradition. It is full of names, dates, meetings, quarrels, and events that are hearsay (one an overheard conversation). It is a collection of “this important person” said this to “another important person.” There is no record; no informant is identified by name or by more than a generic title. The report appears to fail the veracity test in the one instance of a purported meeting in which names, dates, and location are provided. Some of the stories are so bizarre (the Rosneft bribe) that they fail the laugh test. Yet, there appears to be a desire on the part of some media and Trump opponents on both sides of the aisle to picture the Orbis report as genuine but unverifiable.
The Russian ex-intelligence officer who we know was in extremely close contact with Orbis at the time the report was written, was Sergei Skripal.
The Orbis report is mince. Skripal knew it was mince and how it was written. Skripal has a history of selling secrets to the highest bidder. The Trump camp has a lot of money. My opinion is that as the Mueller investigation stutters towards ignominious failure, Skripal became a loose end that Orbis/MI6/CIA/Clinton (take your pick) wanted tied off. That seems to me at least as likely as a Russian state assassination. To say Russia is the only possible suspect is nonsense.
The Incompetence Factor
The contradiction between the claim that the nerve agent was so pure it could only be manufactured by a state agent, and yet that it failed because it was administered in an amateur and incompetent fashion, does not bother the mainstream media. Boris Johnson claimed that the UK had evidence that Russia had a ten year programme of stockpiling secret novichok and he had a copy of a Russian assassination manual specifying administration by doorknob. Yet we are asked to believe that the Russians failed to notice that administration by doorknob does not actually work, especially in the rain. How two people both touched the doorknob in closing the door is also unexplained, as is how one policeman became poisoned by the doorknob but numerous others did not.
The explanations by establishment stooges of how this “ten times more powerful than VX” nerve agent only works very slowly, but then very quickly, if it touches the skin, and still does not actually kill you, have struck me as simply desperate. They make May’s ringing claims of a weapon of mass destruction being used on British soil appear somewhat unjustified. Weapon of Upset Tummy does not sound quite so exciting.
To paint a doorknob with something that if it touches you can kill you requires great care and much protective gear. That no strangely dressed individual has been identified by the investigation – which seems to be getting nowhere in identifying the culprit – is the key fact here. None of us know who did this. The finger-pointing at Russia by corporate and state interests seeking to stoke the Cold War is disgusting.
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So a little summarising:
1) Weeks after the EU rallied around Bojo and TM accusing Russia of state-sponsored attempted murder, RT highlights information released by the BND stating that the British assertions were inaccurate:
a: The West gained access to a Novichok in the 1990s, the Germans asked the Swedes to manufacture and test it, then shared the information with the US, UK and the Czechs/Slovaks. If five Western Security Services knew about it, dummy corporations the world over could covertly manufacture it and research it further.
b: the BND made it clear Porton Down made particularly detailed investigstions, demolishing the thesis that Novichok was not made at DSTL. Aitkenhead did not deny that, further weight for the thesis. ‘Of a type originating from Russia’ does not exclude DSTL from the frame.
So based on the chemical formula and properties, absolutely no conclusion could be drawn as to who, if anyone, used it in Salisbury.
2) The initially reported events and symptoms do not make Novichok poisoning the most likely misadventure to befall the Skripals.
i: The A&E consultant Stephen Davies stated no-one had suffered nerve agent poisoning and only three had suffered poisoning. Not a good career move to lie about this, much better career move to lie that is was Novichok. Even better to not comment until conclusive investigations were complete.
ii: The mode of transmission of Novichok from sealed container to ingestion by Skripals and PC Bailey is unlikely to put it mildly. Is Sergey Skripal a gallant old Russian who always opens and closes doors for his daughter? Did his daughter miraculously forget something and have to return indoors? Was the Novichok formulated within some gel, polymer or resin allowing controlled release 2-4hrs after sensing contact with skin, also making it entirely resistant to rain-associated degradation?
iii: The symptoms described for BZ are remarkably similar to stories of synmptoms showed by the Skripals. Using Occam’s Razor, this is a far more likely cause of symptoms than any of the described Novichok series.
iv: I am sure the world looks forward to global distribution of detailed medical write up of how two Novichok-poisoned patients were treated successfully and restored to apparent wellness in the case of the daughter. This is a serious medical advance that the world should be grateful for…..all first responder anti-terrorist units will want to know that their specialist poison units can treat future victims in this manner.
3) The D notice on Pablo Miller, Skripal’s handler, makes it clear Miller has engaged in subterfuge and/or criminal acts unlikely to be condoned by western general publics. It should be a key component of any Russian defence that without the Prosecution revealing Skripal’s involvement in Miller actions subject to D notice, a judge should throw the case out due to a refusal of prosecuting authorities completing necessary lines of enquiry in parallel with investigations against Russia. Whether you call this malfeasance, misfeasance, perverting the course of justice is irrelevant: the UK has shown it is a lynch mob, not a clinical seeker after truth.
4) When the case started looking as leaky as a geriatric bladder, a false flag White Helmets ‘gas attack’ was staged in Douma, with a quick demolition of Establishment story lines being delivered by journalists actually doing their jobs.
And now the whole thing is a farce, MH17 ‘evidence’ is now released claiming ‘it was Russia WOT DUN IT!’ I make no comment currently on that, just highlight it as a new strand of revived Russia bashing. To date MH17 investigations were about as rigorous as Salisbury, so I remain to be convinced on that score….
In other news, American investors take a 10% stake in Leeds Utd, an undervalued brand in English football, at just the time Roman Abramovitch struggles to renew his visa. The Glazer family retain their immunity from investigation concerning financial malpractice, hiding behind Delaware reporting rules (the jurisdiction where most if not all tax avoiding criminals in the US operate), disappearing PIKs bearing 16% interest on hundreds of millions of debt with no statement as to their fate, making fans buy the club for them, costing £1bn+ in unnecessary interest on what was a debt free highly profitable company etc etc. The UK needs to stop letting US buy UK assets, as it is a totally criminal country, until the Glazers are kicked out…
Sorry to keep harping on about this but the Dr Stephen Davies conspiracy theory has been completely and utterly debunked.
The reason for not using the words ‘nerve agent poisoning’ twice in a sentence is simply because it’s bad English.
He wrote a letter to The Times correcting them for reporting “Poison exposure leaves almost 40 needing treatment”. He then writes, “may I clarify that no patients have experienced symptoms of nerve-agent poisoning in Salisbury and there have only ever been three patients with significant poisoning…”
He hasn’t accidentally let something slip. Nor is he giving a secret code to the Russians. It’s a perfectly reasonable and well written response to some bad journalism. Anyone who doesn’t understand it needs to go back to school.
And here’s Craig writing about poor translation… oh the irony.
I do not get the point you are making. The letter states “… no patients have experienced symptoms of nerve-agent poisoning in Salisbury …” What’s not to understand about that?
Bit of selective quoting there Bill….
The letter starts “Sir, further to your report (“Poison exposure leaves almost 40 needing treatment”)” and then continues the sentence with “may I clarify…”.
Everything he says is a direct reference to the misleading report from The Times which claimed nearly 40 people had symptoms of nerve agent poisoning.
The key point being that only three people have shown ‘symptoms’ of poisoning.
The Times is paywalled but you can see the first paragraph here..
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/poison-exposure-leaves-almost-40-needing-treatment-k52kd6gfm
He clearly uses the term ‘nerve agent poisoning’ the first time in direct reference to The Times’ incorrect report and then says ‘significant poisoning’ to highlight the fact that only three people have symptoms of any kind of poisoning.
“may I clarify that no patients have experienced symptoms of nerve-agent poisoning in Salisbury” means to me, and to any other English speaker, precisely that: no-one, which must include the Skripals, has shown symptoms of nerve-agent poisoning. The rest of the sentence “and there have only ever been three patients with significant poisoning…” quite clearly means that these three patients were poisoned with something other than a nerve-agent. If Dr Davies had meant the Skripals to be an exception to the no-one, he would have used “except”, not “and”.
“Anyone who doesn’t understand it needs to go back to school.”
preferably not the school where you learned your English grammar.
Apart from the fact that your interpretation has been thoroughly debunked by others, if there was some ambiguity, why has Davies not been asked about it on the record in the media?
I’m not aware of any such consensus, can you indicate your source?
Dr. Davies could best provide clarification, is he able to speak yet? Most peculiar, this is 81 days after the event.
The worried-well who reportedly went to the Salisbury hospital ER were briefly interviewed as waiting room triage but never admitted as patients. Presenting with mild anxiety is not a medical basis for hospital admission anywhere in the world. An emergency room deals with bona fide medical emergencies. ER physicians such as Dr. Davies do not hand out anxiety pills. Such assessments (and associated medication) are diverted to a general practitioner.
“An A&E department (also known as emergency department or casualty) deals with genuine life-threatening emergencies, such as: loss of consciousness, acute confused state and fits that are not stopping, persistent, severe chest pain, breathing difficulties, severe bleeding that cannot be stopped…”
https://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/AboutNHSservices/Emergencyandurgentcareservices/Pages/AE.aspx
“No patients have experienced symptoms of nerve-agent poisoning in Salisbury…” needs no interpretation. It says no patients at the Salisbury hospital experienced symptoms of nerve-agent poisoning. Sergei, Yulia and Bailey were patients by all accounts, indeed the only relevant patients. According to Dr. Davies, they were significantly poisoned. By what?
Davies letter is undated but is in response to a Times account published on March 14th. By then, blood tests had been completed (eg BChE assayed for organophosphate poisoning), a medical diagnosis established and ten days of treatment provided, with patient response to treatment seen appropriate to diagnosis.
Surely Dr. Davies would surely have been aware of Porton Down’s “determination” of A-234 (dated to March 6th) and T May’s novichok attribution on March 12th. This would be flagrant malpractice to continue treating a patient for an altogether wrong alternative poison such as a fentanyl or BZ.
It has one bit of ambiguity, “None [of the general citizenry] has had symptoms of poisoning and none has needed treatment. Any blood tests performed have shown no abnormality.” In other words, this hospital has 5 other ER doctors in addition to Dr. Davies; he does not know what happens when he is off-shift, other than if one of his colleagues ordered a blood test to calm a hysteric, nothing came of it. An enzyme assay kit for BChE , not AChE, is used worldwide to assess organophosphate poisoning.
Strong analysis. Thank you.
If Dr Stephen Davies did not mean what he appeared to say in his letter, he could have set the matter right in seconds with a further letter, or a statement of some kind, to clarify his meaning. I’m not aware that he has made any such statement. Indeed, repeated enquiries of Salisbury Hospital for Dr Davies to clear the matter up have not met with any success.
I could do it for him right now.
“Sir, Further to my letter of March 16, my attention has been drawn to the phrasing, which could have been better. For the avoidance of doubt, may I further clarify that apart from three patients with significant symptoms of nerve-agent poisoning, no-one else has required treatment by Salisbury Hospital for such symptoms.
STEPHEN DAVIES, Consultant in Emergency Medicine, Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust”
That took me about two minutes. Why have we not seen something similar from Dr Davies?
Of course they haven’t met with any success, they think you’re a crackpot!
This is a hospital full of hard working people that have barely got a second to spare. You think they’re going to answer the conspiracy theories of the internet? Get a grip man! You’re hassling a Doctor at an NHS Hospital. That’s utterly disgraceful.
I’m telling you and all the other conspiracy loons, it’s complete hypocrisy to bemoan the propaganda of the MSM or the lies of May or Boris or MI6 if you yourselves are peddling half-baked theories and spreading them across the net.
Shame on you all.
Polling evidence shows that only 52% of people believed the Russian State was behind the attack.
http://www.bmgresearch.co.uk/independent-bmg-poll-almost-half-brits-back-theresa-mays-handling-salisbury-novichok-incident/
The spin on the polling evidence is remarkable, as if it is somehow a vindication of the Prime Minister that barely half the population agree with something she claimed was so certain that it was right to create the most serious diplomatic incident in a generation over it.
great summary Rhys!
Right thing from the Russians now must be a video of Putin or Lavrov or another high official saying
“Yulia, we are happy to know you’re doing well. We assure you – we’ve never attempted to kill you or your father. We guarantee you’ll be safe at home in Russia. Please contact Russian embassy when you feel ready to return. We will investigate to find out who is guilty”.
—-
Yulia’s statement reveals – she doesn’t know who attemted to poison them. Also, she doesn’t say it was Russia who tried to kill them.
I’m not surprised with her denial to meet anyone from Russia, she is daughter or intelligence officer and she must know what is a provocation or a double game. Imagine she meets russian ambassador and dies the next day? She may admit either russians will try to kill her or brits to kill her and blame it on russians.
She must be very cautious with the words and statements – exactly the manner we’ve seen.
Hi Craig.
As a native Russian speaker i can not confirm that she speaks naturally in the video. To me it appears as if she is reading written statement, which is not natural at all.
Apart from that, it is strange that she stated her will to return home after being poisoned supposedly by that very home.
Anyway, thank you for your writing.
Hi, Marcelo 🙂
Happy to see fellow russian here!
Hi there)
As a non-native Russian speaker I can confirm you that she is reading from a cardboard or teleprompter in front of her. Adult people, including her handlers, won’t waste time memorizing or waiting for somebody to memorize things like this. Do you imagine the “bloopers” if not? Obviously, reading a declaration that your father is holding in front of you, at gunpoint (figuratively, of course, but highly likely), is stressing and reflects in Yulia’s face expressions.
Teleprompter can be seen in the televised wide-angle shot from RT:
https://youtu.be/fCGKUgaGqpg
About 36 seconds in.
When the OPCW report on the Syrian Chemical Weapon attack I hope that they point out it couldn’t have come from Russia because theirs don’t bloody work
Chlorine is so basic even Gavin Williamson could get it to work!
Did we have to see Aitkenhead again? Is he still in place at Porton Down? Is Porton Down near Watership Down? Do rabbits still appear from the insides of hats? L O L
wut Another spelling of the word “wat.” Used in response to an unclear or absurd statement when seeking to clarify it or expose said absurdity. Commonly used on internet message boards or online games, the word was originally used in 1337 speak and chat language, but has since been used humorously in many cases.
Yup. Craig knows his1337.
Clearly there is something very wrong with the official narrative regarding the family Skripal. All of this is suggestive of someone in high places suddenly prone to panic.
The most obvious explanation for the recourse to panic is that President Trump is indeed draining the swamp. In the US the heat is mounting on Comey. MacCabe and their nefarious acolytes. Stefan Halper a Cambridge academic has recently been outed as an FBI mole. You would have thought that someone somewhere would have had the intelligence to realize that if you are looking for a spy then Cambridge is likely to be a rich hunting ground.
Anyone interested in the truth of the Skripal case should get right behind President Trump as he doing just as he promised he would do – going after the creatures of the swamp.
@ Loony May 24, 2018 at 13:19
‘…Anyone interested in the truth of the Skripal case should get right behind President Trump as he doing just as he promised he would do – going after the creatures of the swamp.’
Hardly, Trump is a ‘swamp creature’ himself.
Building new bases in US-occupied Syria, trying to get Gulf armies to occupy large parts of Syria, Jerusalem Embassy, ramping up pressures on Venezuela and Iran, building wall along US-Mexican border (Texas, California and New Mexico were stolen in a ‘False Flag’ war originally).
‘He’ is just one of the puppet-heads of the Deep State Hydra.
Trump just cancelled his summit in Singapore on June 12 and sent a letter to North Korea’s leader saying it is not possible to meet him now.
Pompeo claims new sanctions on North Korea will be released soon
Paul give it up, he’s not worth it.
I can think of two explanations for our friend.
He has identified this site (accurately) as one that does not support the whole Russiagate, collusion narrative and in his clinically bewildered condition thinks that this equates to support for Trump.
He is a tourist with masochist tendencies that visits to provoke, knowing that he will receive a better class of rhetorical punishment than that available from his regular, white, trailer trash sites.
Other explanations welcome.
The critters of the swamp are arms executves bunging Capitol Hill to buy over-priced, defective, non-cutting edge rubbish for trillions of ollars.
No sign Trump is going after them….
Freeze frame at 1:42. What do you see?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz6XgKrPe3s
I see the shadow of a tree blown by the wind move over parts of the scene which creates a rustling sound. What are you seeing?
She’s obviously reading from a script.
Some others are being found guilty today.
Cilliers who tampered with his wife’s parachute. Attempted murder.
The couple who murdered their French au pair. Murder.
Two men who committed arson on a house in which four children died. Murder.
They are the little people. The state’s operatives always go free,
Is that a bottle of Lidl “Carrick Glen” mineral water on the table next to Yulia Skripal?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj3ltiSbG2s
This is the pack shot: https://img.mysupermarket.co.uk/Live/Products_1000/69/483569.jpg?v=20170711134319
There was a bit of a “weapons of upset tummy” scare about that brand some years ago.
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/shops-take-bottled-water-off-shelves-over-bacteria-scare-26499588.html
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/troubled-water-firm-in-fresh-scare-over-hygiene-26682319.html
I’m sure it’s fine now.
If was going to be extremely silly, I would suggest that it’s a not very coded message:
https://www.bmihealthcare.co.uk/hospitals/bmi-carrick-glen-hospital/cosmetic-services#na
And that lowish aircraft that can be heard would be using Prestwick.
And of course there are various shooting estates in that part of the world.
OK, I’ll stop.
@James B
“Freeze frame at 1:42. What do you see?”
Dry mouth, swallow, eye closure, possible suppression of emotion. What’s your reading?
@ James B Looking down to read her prompt/script.
Are we sure the noise was from aircraft? Or could it have been from road traffic?
It is scripted, heard them say so on the BBC, and they always tell the truth. BBC said she was reading a ‘hand written’ statement though. Don’t know how they got that much detail.
because there’s a photo of her hand written statement you idiot. Written in English of course, because although she struggles to speak English, she writes in it very nice. She even confidently uses phrases like ‘avail myself’, again. Better English than most English, on paper.
Accepting that Skripal was still active as a backgrounder, that he participated in or wrote some of the Steele dossier, hardly seems contentious. To say that the Russians are not the only or most likely perpetrator of the Skripals’ poisoning is not contentious either, unless one reads only Fleet Street media.
To say that UK or US intelligence services might have found him inconvenient and, therefore, worthy of a considerable scare – especially when one could blame it on the Russians – is only slightly contentious. (A scare or they would be dead.) They have experience aplenty in such matters. To lump Clinton in with the usual suspects would seem an unnecessary bridge too far. A bad apple in a sweet barrel.
Hillary Clinton found it i>very necessary to instruct the hush-hush about the novichok.
We weren’t even trying, but there she was all of a sudden, once again.
We have Julian Assange (remember him, anyone?) to thank that we know about that little fact at all.
My wife works with a chap who had a tracheotomy years ago and still has the hole. I’ve met him, he’s a thoroughly nice guy but self conscious about his voice.
I expect it depends on how long the tube is in the neck and what repair processes are carried out as to whether it persists or not but it most certainly can.
Abramovich is connected with Chabad. (Source.) So are the Kushners.
Hold on to your hats!
And whaddayaknow, Abramovich and Glushkov’s paths have crossed. Allegedly it was Abramovich who, in his battle with Berezovsky, kept Glushkov locked in a Moscow prison and used him as a “hostage” to blackmail Berezovsky into handing over shares in oil and TV.
What if Glushkov was either the target or a player in what became the Salisbury event? And now it seems we can ask the same question about Abramovich.
Meanwhile British Tory figures with the finest private-school accents tear at each other’s throats, and the feeling grows that crunch time is coming and that prime minister Theresa May has no more than few weeks left in office. Interesting, that. Fortunes can be won and lost in such periods.
What I think about Skripal’s case today so far – all FACTS are true. I believe there was poisoning, I belive it was Novichok, I belive Yulia and Sergei were in coma and survived. Otherwise, it would be too easy to disprove any of the facts, because too many people involved, citisens and police and hospital stuff…
What is disputable is WHO organaised the poisoning.
Yet I believe Yulia is not a participant of the game, but an innocent victim. I’m sure she just tries to make out what’s going on and she is as diplomatic as possible to not bring any harm to her or her father or to investigation. She must be interested to know the truth, as to what to expect and who is her real enemy – before she moves anywhere from her safe place.
Tatyana, disproving things has been done for decades in the UK, but the authorities have lied and remained in power.
Mr Murray wild no doubt remember well a series of pub bombings on the mainland UK in the 1970s carried out by Irish terrorists. Ten men were sent to prison as a result of two trials, called the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four. They remained there for over 20 years, despite the IRA confirming that they were not the perpetrators. Home Secretaries claimed repeatedly there was no evidence to revisit the cases. The Establishment lied for 20 years, seeing that lying as better than being exposed to concocting false forensics and witnesses committing perjury as well as judges selected to produce a verdict, not examine a case.
We had the lies about WMD for the Iraq war – it was obviously rubbish, but the neocons survived. The Press lied for years.
We have had 40 years of lying about establishment sex pests, with MI5 and Special Branch nobbling honest police officers and journalists, the Met Police being completely corruptible and folk like Cyril Smith, Jimmy Saville being protected and for all we know, many more still not yet exposed.
Then there is 9/11, with the State still lying through its teeth 16+ years on.
Go read Goebbels on how to manage the propaganda of lying…..the UK Establishment is solely about retaining power. It has had 1000 years to actually serve its people and will never ever have any intention of doing so.
“James B
May 24, 2018 at 13:22
Freeze frame at 1:42. What do you see?”
A young woman wearing a blouse with a neck that shows off what looks like a tracheostomy scar. As a female pensioner I would not wear such a blouse, I would have such a scar covered. Women are generally very sensitive about scars and blemishes on their bodies, I know I am.
James B, for some reason the reply button to your comment and link wont work for me.
It is as if she is wearing a garment deliberately designed to draw attention to the scar. A gap in the neckline at the significant place. Yet she has had her hair styled and coloured and eyebrows shaped. There is something very odd and disturbing about it all.
Whoever is “looking after” her has enabled her to look as good as possible in every other respect but has decreed that she is not to cover the scar, when that could easily have been done.
Totally agree, that does seem rather incongruous.
Sergei Skripal’s after-the-fact cooperation is most easily explained as a condition to his permanent leave to remain. Yulia’s cooperation is explicable by her feelings for her father. That they would be under observation for an extended period, to assure their handlers of their long term cooperation, and of the consequences of their failure to do so, and to allow public interest to die down, seems routine. Fleet Street’s interest seems eminently manageable.
As for whether the Skripals knew ahead of time what role they were to play in this farce, few directors tell their stars about surprises. It keeps their reactions fresh and more natural. They were to be kept asleep or incommunicado for weeks. There was plenty of time and opportunity to instruct them about the limits of the explanations they were to offer the public.
Her behavior and their invisibility after the incident work against the government’s claims. More damaging are the obvious inconsistencies between the claims about what this supposed nerve agent does and what happened to the Skripals. Except for controlling statements from the Skripals, that needn’t have been scripted or managed in detail. But how the Skripals and others and various sites were handled is so obviously inconsistent with the mortality of the identified nerve agent, it makes one wonder whether the authors of this farce longed to be writing for the dear departed Benny Hill.
Hilarious prank against British foreign secretary Boris Johnson, who believed he was speaking to Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan and who just couldn’t stop talking – except when stopping for sniffs.
The best laid plans of rats and disgusting dramatis personae gang aft agley, as someone once said.
Dear sequestered Yulia is the unexpected guest, the unforeseen complication, the skeleton in the parlour and the Russkie in the woodpile who confounds all their knavish tricks.
Saw an article on Al Jazeera last week, in which Putin said he had offered (and was still offering) to work with the British to get to the bottom of the attack. Some of the transcript is here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/05/russian-spy-sergei-skripal-discharged-uk-hospital-180518135555333.html
Putin also mentioned the unlikelihood of anyone recovering from poisoning with this substance, stating that anyone in contact with it “would be dead in seconds”.
How odd is it that both father and daughter were poisoned as they left the house (presumably shaking hands after one of them shut the door), and carried on just fine for a substantial period afterwards. But when they fell ill, the secondary contamination of a passing plod caused _him_ to be incapacitated within moments. Very strange indeed.
So Yulia Skripal is alive and well. The dire thoughts expressed by some on previous threads (“she’ll never be seen again”, “she’s been ‘disappeared'”, etc can now be seen as the ravings of those determined to badmouth the UK and its security services. Soon, no doubt, we’ll be seeing Mr Skripal himself, alive and well, and so will fall the second and last domino of that particular conspiracy theory.
Why no date either written or spoken? It could have been filmed weeks ago. Sergei should have a copy of The Sun with him.
Well, she’s still under restraint, just as much as she was when her first statement was released.
So Charles….Novichok ain’t so deadly then….agreed??
You just cut and pasted your comment from the previous thread.
I suppose you were disappointed by the low volume of its follow-ups there?
I am not saying it was not she, but I would do DNA analysis to show she is a relative of Viktoria before eliminating the possibility she is dead and a photo double is now being used. It puts such conjectures to bed one way or another.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-crgQGdpZR0 If you change your mind ….etc
Trump is like the wind. Changeable.
LIVE: Trump cancels summit with ‘hostile’ Kim Jong Un
The president warns Mr Kim that the US’ nuclear weapons are “so powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used.”
https://news.sky.com/story/live-trump-cancels-summit-with-hostile-kim-jong-un-11384050
and menacing.
Good fun to see all the conspiracy theorists ducking ‘n weaving and scrabbling around to find inconsistencies in a attempt to save face. They should save their Sherlock Holmes efforts to finding out who Philip Cross is (oh, has the furore about him been abandoned as quickly as the threats of ‘legal action’)?
And the date it was filmed? And the place? Why didn’t she say London? She speaks a few words in English “if that’s okay with you” addressed to whom? But then speaks in Russian. Why? Why not both? Does she know what country she is in?
I expect she spoke in Russian to let relatives confirm it was her voice.
The conspiracies come from UK not cooperating with Russia over enquiries and evidence. The UK had a party line from minute one, not an investigation.
Stories do not add up.
I have consistently asked for DNA typing to prove the Skripals are Skripals, but that requires cooperation with Russia and that has been avoided.
Ho
You talkin’ to me?
Funny. Gentleman(?) Bostock is a bit bitter.
The word is tracheostomy.
noun, plural tracheostomies.
Surgery.
1. the construction of an artificial opening through the neck into the trachea, usually for the relief of difficulty in breathing.
2. the opening so constructed.
I was on a head and neck cancer ward where several of the other patients had had them performed. To be able to speak, they had to press on the valve to divert air upwards to pass through their vocal cords.
The Yulia’s letter, i agree, was authored by a person thinking in English.
That alone does not mean Yulia could not author it, though.
For example i am thinking in English right now typing this comment.
Just for it is more streamlined and easy way to communicate here.
Granted, would i stumble upon some complex idea i can not easily convey in English, i would have to switch to native Russian, think that line through, translate it to English and maybe (maybe not) brush and smooth it after the translation. But by default typing simple comments in English-language forums i would think in English too.
However, the very thing that Yulia (native Russian) when authoring (supposedly) her letter to her Russian family had to think in English is telling who were real, immediate addressee of the said letter.
What is perhaps ringing some bell is the spirit of the correction inserted after the text was written.
But okay, we Russians are known for our unsubstantiated inbred paranoia…
Original text: i want to help my father after his dismissal from the hospital.
Rewritten text: i intend to be helping my father until his full recovery.
The “after” word – “после” – was twice written and twice stroken out.
No comment.
Thank you. Interesting tidbits.
Has anything at all been heard from Yulia’s boyfriend?
Tatyana: Otherwise, it would be too easy to disprove any of the facts, because too many people involved, citisens and police and hospital stuff…
and it WAS disproved
the “hospital stuff” – or more specifically British NHS – made official statement there were no any military agent poisoning in Salisbury
We’ve been through that dozens of times already, Arioch. Yawn!
BTW, a nice gravatar! Herman Van Rompuy, I believe. Are you Herman or just an admirer?
Trying to ‘out’ somebody again?
You have a beauty of a paranoia there.
I love how he always look so funny, he makes me laugh.
This saint halo of a lamp just adds to it.
I mean, some people still hesitate if Skripals were poisoned or just were spending time somewhere at sunny beaches, while UK government develops the staged show.
My point is, (regarding it is global case, it is international scandal) UK gov wouldn’t risk a tiniest detail, the closer to the reality, the better.
Tatyana, you seriously overestimate our government.
Bayard, I think your government didn’t know the truth. Who really knew it – those who advised Mrs. May.
Those who convinced her of Russian culpability, who jumped suspiciously too fast into conclusion, who had known right treatment for Skripals, who knew too quikly it was Novichok, who said ‘only Russia could produce Novichok’, who claimed ‘we are sure’, who said ‘we’ve got irrefutable proof, but it is top-secret we can’t share it’, who said ‘it’s Russia. no doubt, go and make your due part of job, Mrs. May’.
Sorry, I can’t agree. May and Johnson acted recklessly and completely without the caution one would expect from a government unwilling to “risk a tiniest detail, the closer to the reality, the better”, as you suggest. Some in the government might be cautious, but the leaders are not.
Personally, I think that there are two factions within the security services, one whose original intention it was to “disappear” Sergei and another who hijacked the operation to use as anti-Russian propaganda. The first lot may have been competent and cautious, but the second lot were neither.
I know what you’re saying, and it might be.
Actually, regarding anti-Russian sentiment, it was enough to say ‘a man in the hospital is another russian spy’ and Mrs. May could easily and willingly do her part of the job herself, on her own will.
Tatyana, the biggest problem with Govt is the ridiculous notion that you must have immediate answers.
Had I been Boris Johnson, I would have said:
‘An incident of utmost gravity has occurred in Salibury to a father and daughter requiring investigations concerning a potential attempt to murder two people. I shall constitute an advisory committee of scientific, medical, military, police and intelligence experts to advise me on how to respond to this incident. I have spoken both to the UK Ambassador in Moscow and the Russian Ambassador in London and have scheduled calls with both Sergei Lavrov and Vladimir Putin to discuss the implications of the matter. As and when further significant statements can be made, you will all be informed.’
But that would imply I wanted to get to the bottom of things.
What if Boris Johnson’s career would be adversely affected by getting to the bottom of things?
That would say the Press collaborate with dark forces to ensure the Public Interest is not served.
That is clearly a likely reality.
It might also tell you why Boris et al sing for their supper: they do not have the intellectual weapons to drain the swamp in the UK…….
Rhys Jaggar
thank you for your answer! That was actually what russians had expected from Brit Govt and what never happened.
(*the same with MH17, btw)
Now I understand, surprisingly, I completely forgot of such an alternative.
—
**thank you for putting it into detailed and comprehensive text. I sometimes just can’t get through ornate allusive comments and thus skip many.
Arioch: “too easy to disprove any of the facts”.
Fascinating. Facts that are not facts. Well well.
Those were not my words though, so you missed the aim
Iain, I’m sorry, I should better use the word ‘data’.