Is there a thread about the poisoning of Skripal? [title edited by MNHQ]

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

I've not seen a thread about it at all, but surely there must be?

Russia is of course one of the States Party to OPCW (a UN body) and a member of the P5, so should not be concerned about organisational standards nor its checks and balances.

"Oh dear, it has been mentioned in many newspaper articles as well as on his Wiki pag"

My apologies, I thought you were referring to his whereabouts at the time of the inventions of Novichok. I think it was also mentioned by the Russian authorities in his trial (early 90s, years before he left Russia)

What doubts do you have about OPCW scientific competence?

What doubts do you have about OPCW scientific competence?
Chris Timperley

They also probably won't say where it came from. That appears to be beyond their remit

This is one of my problems with the whole scenario. As I’ve understood it I don’t think you can say definitively where this stuff came from. Some one up thread, who seemed to know a bit about this stuff said there are signatures in the substance, contaminants from the lab and the like, which show where it originated.
However, if this stuff can be brought to the U.K. in base ingredients and mixed here how can this be true? It seems the “ evidence” is by association which I’m not sure would stand up in a legal sense.
I

You might be able to use HPLC or gas chromatography to separate out the component parts of nerve agent samples collected in Salisbury – nerve agent itself, any remaining precursors, intermediates, degradation products or other impurities. That would give a chromatogram profile, which could be used for comparison purposes like a fingerprint, useful if you already have a reference chromatogram profile of the nerve agent known to have been produced in Russia.

There could even be an impurity signature in the samples collected in Salisbury that could link the substance back to Russian starting materials, if impurities in the starting materials are carried through into the final product.

We're not talking here about a piece of cloth that has been moved around from country to country for centuries picking up pollen or sweat marks or other fibres from locals of Italy, Middle East, Spain etc. The migration or storage conditions of something like the Turin Shroud can be worked out. But an unknown chemical of unknown starting composition?

I did once ascertain a low level contaminant that was traced back to the factory of origin but that was only because I also had a store of the starting material that was used as a control and revealed the contaminant.

Do we have a starting material? No.

We don't know where the Salisbury Substance first appeared. If we hadn't been clouded by over-zealous conclusions from Boris&May, long before the door-knob revelation, then maybe we could have had some trust in what we are about to be told.

BTW - How do you know what is in the OPCW remit, kitten?

I read the statement about the Sarin attack in Syria from the opwc and surmised that it would be the same situation.

Thanks outwiththecrowd and counterpoint.
I don’t know what to think really. Other Governments seem to have got on board with this so I’m thinking perhaps there is solid intelligence ( perhaps in the people who played a part in this?) that we don’t have access to.
I can accept this may be the case but I think identifying this substance as definitely from Russia is a bit dodgy.
Do you think this is Novichok? OPCW have said it is “ of the type developed in Russia” but not identified it as definitely being Russian in origin, in spite of being pressured to do so. Why the seemingly long time delay between contamination and effect?

I can understand that you have questions nursey, we all do. But as we keep saying, there will be a great deal that will have been shared with other governments, that isn't out in the public. When countries across political spectrums, usually not united in action, take action together, the evidence must be compelling.

As for Boris, it's embarrassing that he is our foreign secretary, but that's a side issue.

nursy you are thinking the thoughts and wondering all the things that I am .

Of course OYBK is right ,there will be lots of detail not made public .

Whether it will point to Russia or not we can't know.

By Микола Василечко - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=67752890

Lots unity often seen between these countries.

One of the things (of many) which worries me about this situation is the questions for Salisbury residents which dont seem to be being asked or answered? So, what level of contaminant was in the public space, how many people could possibly have been affected etc. Using babywipes on your phone initially, and then a couple of weeks ago I think being advised to binbag your clothes and take them to the council office? None of this advice seems to me to be very useful in terms of public health/information

yolofish
Yes I would be worried if I had been in centre of Salisbury that day. Hopefully the OPWC can give a definite answer on what this was and the effects at low levels particularly.

Amother unanswered thing for me on this is the suggestion that Skripal had some connection with Cambridge Analytica which I think has been woefully under reported here for such a potentially huge story. There is a link posted earlier to an article by Chris Murray about this but also seen one by London Economic.

I am willing to believe that there is hard evidence because of the reaction of other Govs as you are saying oybk
However, something about this as a whole doesn’t hang together.

www.thelondoneconomic.com/opinion/why-the-cambridge-analytica-scandal-could-be-much-more-serious-than-you-think/27/03/

I mentioned Cambridge Analytica just because the exposé provided a timely primer in disinformation.

If you wanted to know specifically about Russian disinformation campaigns, there's quite a lot been written about troll factories such as the Internet Research Agency in St Petersburg.

Eg:
www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/02/putin-kremlin-inside-russian-troll-house
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/20/inside-russian-troll-factory-reached-millions-us-voters-inflammatory/

Up-to-date trackers include:

• The Hamilton 68 Dashboard. Activity from 600 monitored Twitter accounts linked to Russian influence operations.
dashboard.securingdemocracy.org

• EU vs Disinfo. EU project to forecast and respond to pro-Kremlin disinformation.
Eg Skripal and the disinformation swamp

Pro-Kremlin outlets went into overdrive in response to British Prime Minister Theresa May’s statement blaming Moscow for the poisoning and attempted murder of former Russian spy Skripal on British soil.
[...]
What was striking was how the stories – some appearing on the same state-controlled news outlet but completely contradicting one another – peddled multiple, unsubstantiated and often absurd conspiracy theories. This is perhaps the most classic of pro-Kremlin disinformation techniques: to confuse the wider audience and at the same time to feed a loyal audience of disinformers ready to defend Russia with abundant lines to take. The resemblance is very clear to previous instances when Russia was identified as the perpetrator of a crime: for example the MH17-case and the bombing of the humanitarian convoy in Syria.

In both instances, pro-Kremlin disinformation was quick to dismiss, distort, distract and dismay.

It was no surprise, then, that “Russophobia” was one of the top explanations given by Russian state-controlled TV in the Skripal case. This is one of the most common of responses to any accusation levelled against Russia.

The above doesn't tell us what happened in Salisbury, of course.

It just gives a picture of what contemporary Russian disinformation campaigns look like (eg the splatter-gun of multiple conflicting conspiracy theories - if denial ain't cutting it, they'll go for distraction).

Sorry, missed a link above (I know people like to check stuff for themselves).

euvsdisinfo.eu/skripal-and-the-disinformation-swamp/

Lavrov (Russian foreign sec) has today said it was in the interests of the UK govt to assassinate (or attempt to) Sergei and Yulia. Why would that be?

Probably no reason at all. See Perking’s post about conflicting conspiracies. They’re not really aiming for any sort of plausible deniability.

They are saying all sorts of things Yolo. At one point a minister claimed that it was probably food poisoning,

Porton Down are saying they never identified a precise source for the nerve agent. Boris announced on TV that PD told him it came from Russia. I wonder if he will be asked to explain why he lied.

If Boris explained why he lied, it would take a very long time. I assume it is just a hobby of his.

The jarring sight of experts in hazmat suits will once again return to the streets of the cathedral city of Salisbury this week as the process of decontaminating areas cordoned off following last month’s nerve agent attack begins.
Decontamination was delayed so that Easter weekend visitors to Salisbury were not greeted by the unsettling sight of officers in protective suits. The process of safely reopening the sites to the public is expected to take many months. Guardian, 2 April

But, surely baby wipes should do the trick?..................

How can such massive contamination have been contained within the 'sites' when there was free movement in and around them for 24 hours after the Skripals were found? The answer is, it can't.

Was there massive contamination though? The only official document I’ve seen talks about limited contamination in both Zizzi’s and the pub.

You are right in that it is possible, but I wonder how high that risk is. If there was massive contamination in Zizzi’s and the Mill, then wouldn’t more people have become acutely ill?

Although, now I’m wondering about whoever administered it. Did they use all they had or is someone still wandering round with a load of nerve agent?

Was there massive contamination though?

By massive, I mean that although the areas are limited (supposedly), they seem to be considered to be still so highly contaminated that they have been kept cordoned off and guarded for weeks, and apparently when decontamination starts, even this far down the line, it is reportedly going to be a long-drawn out process, yet customers were wandering in and out of these buildings, completely oblivious to any poison present for 24 hours or so, when presumably it was at the height of its toxicity.