Former Russian spy in 'critical condition' after being exposed to unknown substance

[FaxModem1]

Other countries have shown a surprisingly large amount of solidarity with the UK versus Russia now, with several of them expelling Russian diplomats themselves.

Link.

Yes, I even made a post about it here.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Other countries have shown a surprisingly large amount of solidarity with the UK versus Russia now, with several of them expelling Russian diplomats themselves.

Link.

Yes, I even made a post about it here.

Looks like the Russians want to finish the job.

[Rogue 9]

Other countries have shown a surprisingly large amount of solidarity with the UK versus Russia now, with several of them expelling Russian diplomats themselves.

Link.

Yes, I even made a post about it here.

Looks like the Russians want to finish the job.

That would be too brazen, even for them. If the consular officer sent to her murdered her in her hospital bed, there'd be no denying it.

[Sea Skimmer]

It's just part of the Russian disinformation war to act like they care, are a victim, and assert various statehood rights. Nothing very interesting about it I reckon. I mean odds are killing Skripal himself was never the point anyway, the point was to scare off future defectors and spies from acting. It isn't for nothing that this attacked happened just as Russian revealed a slew of new weapons projects.

In other news I see the UK now says the highest nerve agent concentration was on the door handle of the guy's front door. Suggesting the Russians probably intended that he walk into his own house and drop dead, and but for some reason the effects were significantly delayed. Possible from an additive used.

[FireNexus]

It's just part of the Russian disinformation war to act like they care, are a victim, and assert various statehood rights. Nothing very interesting about it I reckon. I mean odds are killing Skripal himself was never the point anyway, the point was to scare off future defectors and spies from acting. It isn't for nothing that this attacked happened just as Russian revealed a slew of new weapons projects.

In other news I see the UK now says the highest nerve agent concentration was on the door handle of the guy's front door. Suggesting the Russians probably intended that he walk into his own house and drop dead, and but for some reason the effects were significantly delayed. Possible from an additive used.

Skripal would have been trained in the use of this agent, right? If so, I could see him being possibly paranoid enough to have been holding onto an antidote (since nerve agent antidotes are readily available, even if this agent is designed to be resistant to them) in case he felt any telltale nerve agent effects.

That would explain why he had been able to wander to the park and maintain semi-consciousness until he was found mumbling. Plus why his daughter appears to have been able to recover despite clearly getting coded as bad or worse.

I have no reason to believe this other than novichok supposedly being something where if you get dosed hard enough to end up on life support you stay on life support.

[Sea Skimmer]

Skripal would have been trained in the use of this agent, right?

No way. While he would have had some kind of chemical warfare training from his time in the Soviet Airborne Corps...over 40 years ago, none of the Novichok agents were ever mass produced under the USSR, the USSR imploded just as the first were being type classified. Nobody in the USSR knew about this stuff except the labs researching it and the top levels of the Soviet military. We know about it in the open source west because people from those labs released the information to the Russian public out of concern the facilities were being operated in a grossly unsafe manner and in deliberate attempt to bypass the CWC.

If so, I could see him being possibly paranoid enough to have been holding onto an antidote (since nerve agent antidotes are readily available, even if this agent is designed to be resistant to them) in case he felt any telltale nerve agent effects.

That's incredibly unlikely and illogical, and pretty dangerous given that said antidotes can be extremely toxic in their own right. As far as A-234 being resistant to treatments, that's a bit speculative as animal models give varying results for all nerve agents vs treatments and human data is entirely lacking. The US military thinks it's probably one of the harder nerve agents to treat, but based on rather limited information and the official comparison was made to Soman...which gives as much as x40 result variations in animal models.

Only Tabun and Sarin have extensive human data, and only then with atropine treatment via Iranian sources. Allegations were made in the 1990s that the Russians had exposed personal to Novichok agents intentionally and through working accidents and that in some cases the reaction was delayed, which they always can be with low level nerve agent exposure, but nothing medically specific is known about this in open literature.

That would explain why he had been able to wander to the park and maintain semi-consciousness until he was found mumbling. Plus why his daughter appears to have been able to recover despite clearly getting coded as bad or worse.

No. That would make even less sense. You think if this guy knew he was attacked with nerve gas to the point he used an autoinjector to treat himself...that he would then go meet his daughter in a coffee shop and a park and generally hang around, rather then go to the frigging hospital? That makes sense to you? The treatments for acute nerve agent exposure are similar to putting a bandage on a gaping gunshot wound. They can save your life, but they do not even remotely a replacement for hospital care.

I have no reason to believe this other than novichok supposedly being something where if you get dosed hard enough to end up on life support you stay on life support.

All nerve agents are like that. Even if you live you can and probably will have systemic organ, nerve and gland damage throughout your body. 'Recovery' times are typically 4-6 weeks for survivable exposures, but that doesn't mean you go back to normal afterwards. With pretreatments it should be notionally possible to avoid this damage up to a point, but these pretreatment regimes aren't something you can engage in for months or years on end without adverse affects. Some day in the future we may have a better pretreatment that actually can be used for greater then 14-30 days, as well as having much higher efficiency, a lot of effort has gone into it, but it's not yet workable.

[FireNexus]

No. That would make even less sense. You think if this guy knew he was attacked with nerve gas to the point he used an autoinjector to treat himself...that he would then go meet his daughter in a coffee shop and a park and generally hang around, rather then go to the frigging hospital? That makes sense to you? The treatments for acute nerve agent exposure are similar to putting a bandage on a gaping gunshot wound. They can save your life, but they do not even remotely a replacement for hospital care.

I honesty figured he realized he’d been dosed sometime after he had come in contact with his daughter, then wandered into a park confused. I didn’t realize the whole timeline. Obviously under the timeline as described, my whole premise is ridiculous. Excuse my stupidity.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

The Russians are seizing on the fact that the analysis couldn't conclusively trace the agent to Russia... even though only Russia makes it. Go figure.

[Crazedwraith]

Good old BoJo making an idiot of himself over the whole thing

and by 'making an idoit' I mean 'very possibly lying to everyone and getting away with it', by claiming Porton Down told him it was definitely Russia and Porton Down making statements yesterday saying, they couldn't be sure where it was from and that wasn't really their job, basically.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Yeah, PD's job was to identify the substance, not where it came from. As their statement said, it's not like the agent is going to have "made in Russia" stamped on it.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Well, the daughter has been discharged from hospital, she's now an outpatient and is in protective custody. The Russians claim she's been abducted.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Sergei Skripal discharged from hospital after Salisbury nerve agent attack

The hypocrisy of the Russians knows no bounds, they have the audacity to claim the UK is violating international law by not letting the Russians anywhere near the Skripals!

[The Romulan Republic]

Putin is like one of those serial killers who's developed a God complex. He thinks he's about all accountability, and unfortunately, due to his having nuclear weapons, he's largely right.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Yulia Skripal, the daughter of Russian spy Sergei Skripal, has said she wants to return to her country “in the longer term”, despite being poisoned with a nerve agent.
Police were called by members of the public on March 4 after Mr Skripal, 66, and 33-year-old Yulia, were spotted slumped on a bench near the Maltings shopping centre.
In a statement to Reuters, she said: “I came to the UK on the 3rd of March to visit my father, something I have done regularly in the past.
“After 20 days in a coma, I woke to the news that we had both been poisoned.
“I still find it difficult to come to terms with the fact that both of us were attacked. We are so lucky to have both survived this attempted assassination. Our recovery has been slow and extremely painful.

Full story here: Yulia Skripal 'plans to return' to Russia after Salisbury poisoning which left her 'lucky to be alive'

[Crazedwraith]

The latest news from this is two more people in the area have fallen ill with the same symptoms. Porton Down says its left over novichok, the russians say it couldnt last that long out in the open.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yulia Skripal, the daughter of Russian spy Sergei Skripal, has said she wants to return to her country “in the longer term”, despite being poisoned with a nerve agent.
Police were called by members of the public on March 4 after Mr Skripal, 66, and 33-year-old Yulia, were spotted slumped on a bench near the Maltings shopping centre.
In a statement to Reuters, she said: “I came to the UK on the 3rd of March to visit my father, something I have done regularly in the past.
“After 20 days in a coma, I woke to the news that we had both been poisoned.
“I still find it difficult to come to terms with the fact that both of us were attacked. We are so lucky to have both survived this attempted assassination. Our recovery has been slow and extremely painful.

Full story here: Yulia Skripal 'plans to return' to Russia after Salisbury poisoning which left her 'lucky to be alive'

Well, I have a horrible suspicion that she's effectively committing suicide, but I wish her the best.

The latest news from this is two more people in the area have fallen ill with the same symptoms. Porton Down says its left over novichok, the russians say it couldnt last that long out in the open.

So if it couldn't last that long in the open, what's Russia's explanation, other than "We did it again"?

Most likely its left over, yeah. Turns out using chemical weapons tends to cause collateral damage. Who knew?

FYI, were it not for the fact of Russia's nuclear weapons, and not wanting the world to burn, I would fully support the British government if they opted to declare war on Russia over this.

[Zaune]

The latest news from this is two more people in the area have fallen ill with the same symptoms. Porton Down says its left over novichok, the russians say it couldnt last that long out in the open.

Apparently one of them has just died.

Anyone else think the Russians are losing their touch? Not only do they spontaneously decide that a spy they turned over in a prisoner exchange almost a decade ago needs to be offed in a needlessly convoluted and unsubtle way to send some sort of message, the only person the harebrained scheme actually kills is some innocent bystander who picked up the extremely incriminating evidence someone left lying around in the bloody street.

[loomer]

The incriminating evidence in the street doesn't say good things about the British intelligence services either.

[Mange]

The latest news from this is two more people in the area have fallen ill with the same symptoms. Porton Down says its left over novichok, the russians say it couldnt last that long out in the open.

And the Russians are lying. The scientist who developed A-234, and who still lives in Russia, is convinced that it was that substance and that it can absorb itself into soft materials and stick around for a long time under certain conditions: The Telegraph

[EnterpriseSovereign]

FYI, were it not for the fact of Russia's nuclear weapons, and not wanting the world to burn, I would fully support the British government if they opted to declare war on Russia over this.

Yeah, no, that's not gonna happen; May is stupid and incompetent, but not suicidal. Were Trump in her position though, I'd be far less optimistic...

[The Romulan Republic]

FYI, were it not for the fact of Russia's nuclear weapons, and not wanting the world to burn, I would fully support the British government if they opted to declare war on Russia over this.

Yeah, no, that's not gonna happen; May is stupid and incompetent, but not suicidal.

Yeah, I know it won't happen. Because of the nukes.

Isn't it nice that Putin can murder civilians with chemical terrorism with impunity? Sure am glad we have that nuclear deterrent to make the world a safer and more peaceful place.

Were Trump in her position though, I'd be far less optimistic...

Please. Trump would just deny that his Russian paymasters were responsible, and probably use it as a pretext to invade Iran.

[Ace Pace]

Are you seriously comparing nuclear weapons to chemical used for targeted assassinations?

[The Romulan Republic]

Are you seriously comparing nuclear weapons to chemical used for targeted assassinations?

No. I'm not. I am sarcastically pointing out that having nuclear weapons allows Putin to engage in chemical terrorism with effective impunity.

Seriously, do people here actually bother to read what I post before responding?

Also, "targeted assassinations" is a pretty generous way of describing it. A single individual or family may have been the intended target, but the method chosen pretty much ensured collateral damage.

[loomer]

Craig Murray remains skeptical.

[Flanker_33]

Anyone else think the Russians are losing their touch? Not only do they spontaneously decide that a spy they turned over in a prisoner exchange almost a decade ago needs to be offed in a needlessly convoluted and unsubtle way to send some sort of message, the only person the harebrained scheme actually kills is some innocent bystander who picked up the extremely incriminating evidence someone left lying around in the bloody street.

I find it kinda strange to see such a terribly planned operation from the heirs of the KGB, which was pretty much everywhere just 30 years ago and had planted high profile moles in dozens of key posts. I'd even say that it looks too amateurish for both the Russian secret services... And for the British police and intelligence. Now, who's lying, who's just being terrible at their job? That's a whole different topic.

Either this, or it's just political saber rattling to get more funding for the defence companies, because while the British political scene is barking at Russia along with other European leaders there and there, the NASA is buying Russian rocket engines, NATO operations in Africa and the Middle East regularly hire Russian cargo airlines for transport duties, most European big companies have opened branches in Russia to avoid sanctions and Russians are buying real estate all over the EU and USA. Don't believe me?