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The Disappearing Spy

By Rob Slane | The Blog Mire | March 4, 2021

It is exactly three years since one of the most absurd yarns of modern times was spun just a few stone’s throws from where I live. The official narrative of the alleged poisoning of Sergei Skripal was so patently ridiculous and full of holes, that I remain amazed at how anyone could have been taken in by it — although it must be said that this astonishment has since been surpassed by an order of magnitude by some of the things millions of people have been willing to believe over the past year, including the myth that healthy people can transmit an illness, the myth that wearing a mask prevents virus spread, and the myth that Lockdowns save lives rather than destroying both lives and society.

I don’t really have anything new to say on the subject, but would simply point anyone who is interested to the in-depth piece I wrote a year ago (here), which includes the 40 most absurd, implausible and impossible elements of the case (I have also republished these points below). They remain as absurd, implausible and impossible as ever, which the British security services and Metropolitan Police know full well.

I would just add one further observation, though. I have titled this piece, The Disappearing Spy, and for good reason. Of all the glaring issues in the deception put forward by the British authorities, the single biggest is the fact that Sergei Skripal, alleged victim of nerve agent poisoning, has not been seen or heard of since. Nor has a statement ever been issued on his behalf. This is extraordinarily odd, given the enormity of the story at the time, and the huge opportunities an interview or even a few snaps would have presented to the authorities and media to milk the story even more.

There are only two possible explanations for this:

The first is that it has been deemed too dangerous for him to be seen. However, three other high profile cases may help to put this explanation into perspective. Firstly, when Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned by Polonium-210, it was not deemed too dangerous for photographs of him to be taken in his hospital bed and plastered all over the media. Secondly, after Yulia Skripal’s apparent departure from Salisbury District Hospital, it was not deemed too dangerous for a statement to be released on her behalf, and for her to subsequently appear on camera (most probably at a US Airbase) looking remarkably well for a victim of nerve agent poisoning, reading a pre-prepared statement. Thirdly, it was not deemed too dangerous for a recent alleged victim of “Novichok” poisoning, Alexei Navalny, to not only appear on camera, but travel back to Moscow. All three of these cases make a nonsense of any idea that it was too dangerous for Mr Skripal to make an appearance. A video at a secret location would have done. A photo at his hospital bedside would have sufficed (everyone knew that location, so it could hardly have given his location away to take a snap of him there). Even a brief statement would have been something. But nothing. Zero. Nada. Zilch.

I’ll leave readers to work out what the second possible explanation is, and which of the two is more likely.

  1. That two men put themselves and everyone on their flight in jeopardy, by boarding a plane with at least one, possibly two, bottles of the World’s Deadliest Nerve Agent (WDNA) in their luggage. ​(ABSURD)
  2. That the two suspects dropped an unused package of the WDNA in a bin somewhere, whilst taking the used bottle of nerve agent back to Moscow with them. ​(ABSURD)
  3. Or alternatively, that they only had one package of WDNA with them, but brought a cellophane wrapping machine to Salisbury to wrap the used box up in, before discarding it. ​(ABSURD)
  4. That the two men sprayed WDNA in an open space, without wearing any protective clothing. ​(ABSURD)
  5. That after they had done this, rather than legging it, they decided to spend an hour in the city centre window-shopping and taking pictures. ​(ABSURD)
  6. That Mr Skripal and his daughter both somehow managed to touch the door handle of his front door on their way out (try it with someone next time you exit your house).​ (IMPLAUSIBLE)
  7. That despite being contaminated with WDNA, they showed no effects for hours afterwards​. (IMPLAUSIBLE)
  8. That when they did show effects hours later, it was at precisely the same time, despite their very different heights, weights and metabolisms. (IMPLAUSIBLE)
  9. That despite being contaminated with WDNA, they went into town, fed ducks, went for a meal, then went to a pub for a drink.​ (IMPLAUSIBLE)
  10. That despite having hands contaminated with WDNA, Mr Skripal handed a piece of bread to a local boy who ate it without becoming contaminated. (IMPLAUSIBLE)
  11. That despite having hands that were contaminated with WDNA, Mr Skripal somehow managed to contaminate the table in Zizzis, but not the door or door handle on the way in. (IMPLAUSIBLE)
  12. That despite having hands that were contaminated with WDNA, Mr Skripal somehow managed not to contaminate the manager of Zizzis when he shook hands with him (confirmed to me by a local source). (IMPLAUSIBLE)
  13. That after becoming extremely aggressive in Zizzis, which some assume was the effects of poisoning with WDNA​, Mr Skripal wolfed down a plate of seafood risotto before sauntering over to the pub for a drink. (IMPLAUSIBLE)
  14. That no CCTV of Mr Skripal or his daughter on 4th March could be shown to the public to jog their memories, because of something called “National Security”. (ABSURD)
  15. That no CCTV could be shown of The Maltings, on the grounds of National Security, even though according to the official story no crime took place there. (ABSURD)
  16. That the Russian couple who were filmed on CCTV camera at 15:47 in Market Walk (confirmed by a reliable source in the comment section on this blog), were not in any way connected with the case. (IMPLAUSIBLE)
  17. That the only CCTV the public were allowed to see of this pair was an absurd, blurred, fuzzy image taken second hand on a mobile phone, when they could have shown crystal clear footage from the CCTV camera at the other end of Market Walk. (ABSURD)
  18. That the Skripals were somehow in Zizzis at the same time that they were actually in the Mill pub (The Met’s timeline shows them to have been in Zizzis from 14:20 and 15:35, which is demonstrably untrue). (IMPOSSIBLE)
  19. That the Metropolitan Police are unable to put out correct timelines. (IMPLAUSIBLE)
  20. That WDNA deteriorated so much after an hour on a door handle, that it was too weak to kill the Skripals. (IMPLAUSIBLE)
  21. That this same WDNA, which allegedly deteriorated in an hour, was then found three weeks later after exposure to the elements and after being touched by many human hands, to be in a state of “high purity, persistent and weather resistant”. (IMPOSSIBLE)
  22. That WDNA, which was allegedly sprayed on a door handle, somehow managed to spread to the roof of the house, meaning that it had to be replaced. (IMPOSSIBLE)
  23. Yet that same WDNA, 2mg of which is apparently enough to kill a person (according to BBC Panorama), and which causes whole roofs to have to be replaced and cars to be destroyed, can be cleansed by members of the public using baby wipes. (ABSURD)
  24. That the police cars which attended the Maltings needed to be destroyed, yet the ones that attended Mr Skripal’s house, where the poison was apparently most concentrated, did not. (ABSURD)
  25. That Detective Sergeant Nicholas Bailey managed to be a first responder at the bench when the two Russians were on it, at the same time as not being at the bench when the two Russians were on it. (IMPOSSIBLE)
  26. That Mr Bailey entered Mr Skripal’s house via the back door, because he couldn’t open the front door; but also managed to enter the house via the front door because he was able to open it. (IMPOSSIBLE)
  27. That he was wearing a forensic suit to enter the house of someone who had apparently overdosed in a park on Fentanyl. (ABSURD)
  28. That he managed to get contaminated by WDNA despite wearing a forensic suit. (IMPLAUSIBLE)
  29. That the numerous police officers not wearing forensic suits, who went in and out of the house on 4th and 5th March, did not become contaminated by WDNA, even though it was allegedly found to be most concentrated there three weeks later, and in a state of “high purity”. (IMPOSSIBLE)
  30. That the police somehow managed to miss all four of Mr Skripal’s pets (two cats and two guinea pigs), so leaving them to starve to death. (IMPLAUSIBLE)
  31. That an air ambulance was called for what looked like a drug overdose on a park bench, when a land ambulance can get to the hospital just as quickly, if not quicker given where the helicopter had to land. (ABSURD)
  32. That the chief nurse of the British Army just happened to be shopping near the bench when the two Russians were on it. (ABSURD)
  33. That there just happened to be two Porton Down trained doctors at Salisbury District Hospital. (ABSURD)
  34. That despite The Met, the Government and the media referring to the substance used as “Novichok”, in their only official statement to a court of law, Porton Down were unable to confirm this, instead referring to it as “a nerve agent or related compound” and “a Novichok class nerve agent or closely related agent.” (ABSURD)
  35. That Porton Down were able to identify a substance within 36 hours that apparently no other country on earth makes, has made, or can make. (IMPLAUSIBLE)
  36. That “Novichok” can only be made in Russia, despite variants of it having been synthesised or stocked in numerous countries including Czechia, Sweden, Germany, Iran, the US, and Britain (Boris Johnson having unwittingly confirmed this when he blurted out that they had samples of it at Porton Down). (IMPOSSIBLE)
  37. That after she and her father were allegedly poisoned by the Russian state, Yulia Skripal said she wanted to return there. (ABSURD)
  38. That Mr Skripal and his daughter have never been seen together since — not even in a single photo. (IMPLAUSIBLE)
  39. That nothing has ever been heard from Mr Skripal since (national security won’t wash – his daughter was able to appear in a video). (ABSURD)
  40. That Salisbury had its first case of Fentanyl poisoning on the same day, at the same time, and in the same shopping centre apparently involving another couple. (IMPLAUSIBLE)

March 4, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Joining Some Dots on the Skripal Case: Part 3 – The Agitated Mr Skripal

By Rob Slane | The Blog Mire | June 4, 2018

In Part 1 of this series, I stated why I believe the official narrative on the Skripal case does not appear to hold water. Firstly, the nerve agent A-234 (Novichok) can and has been produced outside Russia, in a number of places, thus disproving the claim that it must have come from Russia. Secondly, the fact that the effects experienced by the Skripals — four hours of moving freely around Salisbury, followed by no irreparable damage — do not remotely fit what the scientific literature says about that substance — almost instantaneous death or a short life with irreparable damage to the central nervous system –, makes it highly unlikely that they were indeed poisoned by it. Indeed, the burden of proof is on those making the claims to show how and why the scientific literature was wrong.

Then in Part 2, I mentioned four aspects of the case, which are undoubtedly significant, but which seem to have been ignored or forgotten. I ended that piece by saying that I hoped to discuss what I consider to be an even bigger aspect of the case; something that may well begin to join some dots together.

And this is what I intend to do in this piece. However, before I do, I should start by saying that what I am about to say is speculative. That is not to say that it is not based on facts. It is. It is based on witness testimony that appeared very early on in the case — three days after the poisoning — and which I deem to be credible since it appeared before the case became completely politicised, which is sadly what subsequently happened. I am then using that testimony to construct what I consider to be the best explanation for what the witness described. And so it is very much a theory. One based on facts, but a theory nevertheless. As such it is of course open to challenge.

Let me begin by quoting a significant chunk of the particular witness testimony, which appeared in the Daily Mail on 7th March. I have highlighted what I consider to be the most revealing bits, and then at the end I will explain why I think they are important and what — in my opinion — they most likely imply:

“Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, 33, left his neat, red brick £350,000 semi detached in Salisbury and made their way to Zizzi in the city centre, less than two miles away. The restaurant, in Castle Street, was busy when they arrived, but they declined the seats offered to them at the front, instead selecting ones at the back, close to the kitchen.

They began with a starter of garlic bread to share followed by two glasses of white wine. They ordered from the menu, choosing the 600 calorie risotto pesce with king prawns, mussels and squid rings in a tomato, chilli and white wine sauce.

But within minutes Mr Skripal had become angry, a witness said. ‘I think he was swearing in Russian,’ said the man, who did not want to be named. ‘She was just sitting there quietly, and didn’t really say anything. They were both smartly dressed, she was in a black coat. They were speaking to each other in Russian.’ He said Mr Skripal appeared annoyed that their main course had taken 20 minutes to arrive – and appeared in a hurry to leave.

‘He was going absolutely crazy, I didn’t understand it and I couldn’t understand him. They had not been seen for a little while by the front of house staff, but I think it was more than that. He just wanted his food and to go. He was just shouting and losing his temper. I would have asked him to leave. He just said “I want my food and my bill”. ‘The waiter took him the bill at the same time as the main course, which was unusual. I don’t think they paid all of the bill. I think they were given a discount because he was so angry and agitated. He had to wait about 20 minutes for his main course. I think it was easier for the staff just to give him money to leave as he was so angry. They were sitting by themselves at the back of the restaurant but I think people were pleased when they left. They were only there for about 45 minutes. It was a quick lunch. He just wanted to get out of there. She was silent, perhaps embarrassed.’

He added: ‘He didn’t seem to have to wait long for his food. I noticed him first because they were sitting by themselves, and because he was an older man with a younger woman, and because he was losing his temper. ‘He didn’t seem ill physically, but perhaps mentally ill with the way he was shouting.’

The witness said other than appearing angry, there was no sign that either of them were ill.

‘They weren’t poisoned at Zizzi. I saw the chef prepare the food,’ he said. ‘No one could have sneaked in and added anything to his food there, the kitchen is open. The drinks are made at the bar which is by the door, but I think it is unlikely. No one could get to him.’”

So why is this all so significant?

There are a number of things:

In good health
In the first place, it shows that at the time they were in the restaurant, neither Mr Skripal or Yulia Skripal were displaying any signs of being physically unwell. On the contrary, the witness testifies to the fact that Mr Skripal did not seem at all physically ill, and he also stated that Yulia sat there calmly and quietly.

No signs of any poisoning
Secondly, it shows that at that time, neither of them appeared to be showing any symptoms whatsoever of having already been poisoned. On the contrary, the fact that they ordered and then ate their food is a very strong indication that they hadn’t. If Mr Skripal’s agitated state could be explained by a prior poisoning — by the deadliest nerve agent known to man remember — how likely would it be that he would have felt well enough to order and consume his dish of risotto pesce with king prawns, mussels and squid rings in a tomato, chilli and white wine sauce. Not the kind of food that someone feeling dodgy is likely to wolf down, as he appears to have done.

The agitation must therefore be explained by something else
Thirdly, the obvious conclusion suggested by the two points above is this: Mr Skripal’s agitation had nothing whatsoever to do with him feeling the effects of having already been poisoned. Rather, it was because of something else entirely.

Of course this leads to the question of what it was that caused his agitation. Here we must take the facts, and begin to make suppositions based on them.

The witness’s testimony of Mr Skripal’s behaviour makes it abundantly clear that he was very much in a hurry to leave. And as stated above, this agitation and hurry can have had nothing whatsoever to do with feeling physically unwell from the effects of poisoning, since he displayed no such signs and because he went ahead and ate his food – very quickly it would seem.

Now tell me: if you saw someone in a restaurant getting in a hissy fit over a relatively short wait for his food, angrily demanding that he be served, asking for the bill to be brought at the same time as the main course, wolfing the food down, and generally looking like he was in a hurry to leave, what would you conclude? My guess is that you would conclude that the person was in a hurry because they needed to get somewhere by a certain time. Seems obvious, doesn’t it?

And so it seems to me from Mr Skripal’s behaviour, plus the witness’s impression, that there is a startlingly simple and obvious explanation for what was going on at Zizzis that afternoon: Mr Skripal was in a hurry to eat and to leave, not because he was unwell, not because he was suffering any physical effects of being poisoned by A-234 some four hours previous, but because he needed to be somewhere to meet with someone at a certain time. And where did he have to get to in such a hurry? Why, the park bench in The Maltings, sometime between 3:45 and 4:00pm.

I hear an objection. When I ran this supposition past a friend, they replied by saying that although it all sounds very plausible, how do we know that Mr Skripal was not just generally mentally ill? After all, the witness says that although Mr Skripal didn’t seem physically ill, he was “perhaps mentally ill with the way he was shouting.”

To this, I would respond as follows: firstly, it is well known that he was a frequent visitor to Zizzis, and had this been his normal sort of behaviour, it is likely that he would have exhibited it before and been prevented from entering. But secondly, and far more crucially, is the behaviour of his daughter. According to the witness, she just sat there and said nothing. She made no attempt to calm him down in front of the staff and other diners. Had he been mentally ill, it is likely that she would have made some attempt to explain his behaviour apologetically to the staff. Yet she does not, which suggests that she was well aware of the reason for his agitation, and – like him – just wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible.

And so I submit that the most plausible explanation for Mr Skripal’s agitation, and his seeming hurry to leave, was that he wanted to eat quickly, in order to get to The Maltings, where he had a pre-arranged rendezvous at the now infamous bench.

In the following part, I hope to join some more dots together, this time asking why he might have had a meeting at the bench.

June 4, 2018 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

UK intelligence may be complicit in Skripal’s poisoning – ex-FSB head

RT | March 13, 2018

A former FSB director suggested British intelligence agencies may be complicit in the attempt on the life of former double agent Sergei Skripal, adding the incident has actually caused “enormous harm” to Russia.

Nikolay Kovalev, former director of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), told RIA Novosti on Tuesday it is mainly the UK and its ally the US who benefit from Skripal’s poisoning. The former military intelligence officer was exposed as a British spy back in the early 2000s.

“It looks like British secret services are complicit in it,” Kovalev went on. “[Defectors] are fully under surveillance … the secret services are monitoring them, they know their whereabouts and schedules. And then you have such strange events happen in a row.”

Kovalev, who led the FSB from 1996 until 1998, said he believes that a series of assassination attempts targeting defectors in the UK makes him think that the British “scapegoat this or that traitor after having utilized him to the maximum extent, and then say the Russians did it.”

Skripal, 66, and his 33-year-old daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a bench outside a shopping center in Salisbury last week, prompting London to pin the blame on Moscow.

On Monday, British Prime Minister Theresa May said the poisoning was either “a direct act by the Russian state on Britain,” or the Russian government had allowed the alleged nerve agent, ‘Novichok’, to get into the wrong hands.

“The government has concluded that it is highly likely that Russia was responsible,” she said.

Kovalev dismissed the claim, saying the nerve agents could have been stored in any post-Soviet country, including Ukraine.

“Given that [such substances] were stockpiled in former Soviet Union republics – sorry, but Ukrainian involvement can’t be ruled out,” he said.

His assessment has been echoed by another former security official who suggested the nerve agent allegedly used in the attempt on Skripal’s life was produced in the UK. General Vladimir Mikhailov, a former high-ranking FSB officer, told RIA Novosti that if Vil Mirzayanov, a Russian chemical weapons expert who defected to the West in the early 1990s, had disclosed the formula, MI6 “could have synthesized the agent and used it for political purposes.”

March 13, 2018 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Russophobia | , , | 1 Comment

Reality Check: The Guardian Restarts Push for Regime Change in Russia

Mark Rice-Oxley, Guardian columnist and the first in line to fight in WWIII.

By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | March 9, 2018

The alleged poisoning of ex-MI6 agent Sergei Skripal has caused the Russophobic MSM to go into overdrive. Nowhere is the desperation with which the Skripal case has been seized more obvious than the Guardian. Luke Harding is spluttering incoherently about a weapons lab that might not even exist anymore. Simon Jenkins gamely takes up his position as the only rational person left at the Guardian, before being heckled in the comments and dismissed as a contrarian by Michael White on twitter. More and more the media are becoming a home for dangerous, aggressive, confrontational rhetoric that has no place in sensible, adult newspapers.

For example, Mark Rice-Oxley’s column in today’s Guardian :

Oh, Russia! Even before we point fingers over poison and speculate about secret agents and spy swaps and pub food in Salisbury, one thing has become clear: Russia appears lost, a global menace, a moral vacuum, a far greater threat than it ever was during the cold war.

Read this. It’s from a respected “unbiased”, liberal news outlet. It is the worst, most partisan political language I have ever heard, more heated and emotionally charged than even the most fraught moments of the Cold War. It is dangerous to the whole planet, and has no place in our media.

If everything he said in the following article were true, if he had nothing but noble intentions and right on his side, this would still be needlessly polarizing and war-like language.

To make it worse, everything he proceeds to say is a complete lie.

Usually we would entitle these pieces “fact checks”, but this goes beyond that. This? This is a reality check.

Its agents pop over for murder and shopping…

FALSE: There’s no proof any of this ever happened. There has been no trial in the Litvinenko case. The “public inquiry” was a farce, with no cross-examination of witnesses, evidence given in secret and anonymous witnesses. All of which contravene British law regarding a fair trial.

… even while its crooks use Britain as a 24/7 laundromat for their ill-gotten billions, stolen from compatriots.

TRUE… sort of: Russian billionaires do come to London, Paris, and Switzerland to launder their (stolen) money. Rice-Oxley is too busy with his 2 minutes of hate to interrogate this issue. The reason oligarchs launder their money here… is that WE let them. Oligarchs have been fleeing Russia for over a decade. Why? Because, in Russia, Putin’s government has jailed billionaires for tax evasion and embezzling, stripped them of illegally acquired assets and demanded they pay their taxes. That’s why you have wanted criminals like Sergei Pugachev doing interviews with Luke Harding, complaining he’s down to his “last 270 million”.

When was the last time a British billionaire was prosecuted for financial crimes? Mega-Corporations owe literally billions in tax, and our government lets them get away with it.

Its digital natives use their skills not for solving Russia’s own considerable internal problems but to subvert the prosperous adversaries that it secretly envies.

FALSE: Russiagate is a farce, anyone with an open-mind can see that. The reference to Russians envying the west is childish and insulting. The 13, just thirteen, Russians who were indicted by Mueller have no connection to the Russian government, and allegedly campaigned for many candidates, and both for and against Trump. They are a PR firm, nothing more.

It bought a World Cup,

FALSE: The World Cup bids are voted on, and after years and years of investigation the US/UK teams have found so little evidence of corruption in the Russia bid that they simply stopped talking about it. If the FBI had found even the slightest hint of financial malpractice, would we ever have stopped hearing about it?

… invaded two neighbours…

False: A European Union investigation found that Georgia was to blame for the start of the (very brief, very humiliating) Russo-Georgian war. It lasted a week. That a week-long conflict started by the other side is evidence of “global threat” in a world where Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya have happened is beyond hypocritical… it is delusional.

Regarding the second “neighbour”: Ukraine. Ukraine and Russia are not at war. Ukraine has claimed to have been “invaded” by Russia many times… but has never declared war. Why? Because they rely on Russian gas to live, and because they know that if Russia were to ever REALLY invade, the war would last only just a bit longer than the Georgian one. The “anti-terrorist operation” in Ukraine was started by the coup government in 2014. Since that time over 10,000 people have died. The vast majority killed by the governments mercenaries and far-right militias… many of whom espouse outright fascism.

… bombed children to save a butcher in the Middle East.

MISLEADING: The statement is trying to paint Russia/Assad as deliberately targeting children, which is clearly untrue. Russia is operating in Syria in full compliance with international law. Unlike literally everybody else bar Iran. When Russia entered the conflict, at the invitation of the legitimate Syrian government, Jihadists were winning the war. ISIS had huge swathes of territory, al-Qaeda affiliates had strongholds in all of Syria’s major cities. Syria was on the brink of collapse. Rice-Oxley is unclear whether or not he thinks this is a good thing.

Today, ISIS is obliterated, Aleppo is free and the war is almost over. Apparently Syria becoming another Libya is preferable to a secular government winning a war against terrorists and US-backed mercenaries.

And now it wants to start a new nuclear arms race.

FALSE: America started the arms race when they pulled out of the anti-ballistic missile treaty. Putin warned at the time it was a dangerous move. America then moved their AEGIS “defense shield” into Eastern Europe. Giving them the possibility of first-strike without retaliation. This is an untennable position for any country. Putin warned, at the time, that Russia would have to respond. They have responded. Mr Rice-Oxley should take this up with Bush and Cheney if he has a problem with it.

And before the whataboutists say, “America does some of that stuff too”, that may be true, but just because the US is occasionally awful it doesn’t mean that Russia isn’t.

MISLEADING: America doesn’t do “some of that stuff”. No, America isn’t “occasionally awful”. America does ALL of that stuff, and has been the biggest destructive force on the planet for over 70 years. Since Putin came to power America has carried out aggressive military operations against Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and Syria. They have sanctioned and threatened and carried out coups against North Korea, Ukraine, Iran, Honduras, Venezuela and Cuba. All that time, the US has also claimed the right to extradite and torture foreign nationals with impunity. The war crimes of American forces and agencies are beyond measure and count.

We are so used to American crimes we just don’t see them anymore. Imagine Putin, at one his epic four-hour Q&A sessions, off-handedly admitting to torturing people in illegal prison camps. Would we ever hear the end of it?

Even if you cede the utterly false claim that Russia has “invaded two neighbours”, the scale of destruction just does not compare.

Invert the scale of destruction and casualties of Georgia and Iraq. Imagine Putin’s government had killed 500,000 people in Georgia alone, whilst routinely condemning the US for a week-long war in Iraq that killed less than 600 people. Imagine Russia kidnapped foreign nationals and tortured them, whilst lambasting America’s human rights record.

The double-think employed here is literally insane.

Note to Rice-Oxley and his peers, pointing out your near-delusional hypocrisy is not “whataboutism”. It’s a standard rhetorical appeal to fairness. If you believe the world shouldn’t be fair, fine, but don’t expect other people not to point out your double standards.

As for poor little Britain, it seems to take this brazen bullying like a whipping boy in the playground who has wet himself. Boycott the World Cup? That’ll teach them!

FALSE: Rice-Oxley is trying to paint a picture of false weakness in order to promote calls for action. Britain has been anything but cooperative with Russia. British forces operate illegally in Syria, they arm and train rebels. They refused to let Russian authorities see the evidence in the Litvinenko case, and refused to let Russian lawyers cross-examine witnesses. Britain’s attitude to Russia has been needlessly, provocatively antagonistic for years.

Russians have complained that the portrayal of their nation in dramas such as McMafia is cartoonish and unhelpful, a lazy smear casting an entire nation as a ludicrous two-dimensional pantomime villain with a pocketful of poisonous potions…. Of course, the vast majority of Russians are indeed misrepresented by such portrayals, because they are largely innocent in these antics.

TRUE: Russians do complain about this, which is entirely justifiable. The western representation of Russians is ignorant and racist almost without exception. It is an effort, just like Rice-Oxley’s column, to demonize an entire people and whip up hatred of Russia so that people will support US-UK warmongering.

Most ordinary Russians are in fact also victims of the power system in their country, which requires ideas such as individual comfort, aspiration, dignity, prosperity and hope to be subjugated to the wanton reflexes of the state

FALSE: Putin’s government has decreased poverty by over 66% in 17 years. They have increased life-expectancy, decreased crime, and increased public health. Pensions, social security and infrastructure have all been rebuilt. These are not controversial or debated claims. The Guardian published them itself just a few years ago. That is hardly a state where hope and aspiration are put aside.

Why is Russian power like this: cynical, destructive, zero-sum, determined to bring everything down to a base level where everyone thinks the worst of each other and behaves accordingly?

MISLEADING FALLACY: This is simply projection. There is no logical basis for this statement. He is simply employing the old rhetorical trick of asking WHY something exists, as a way of establishing its existence. This allows the (dishonest) author to sell his own agenda as if it solves a riddle. Before you can explain something, you need to establish an explanandum… something which requires explaining. This is the basic logical process that our dear author is attempting to circumvent. We don’t NEED to explain why Russian power is like this, because he hasn’t yet established that it is.

I think there are two reasons. The most powerful political idea in Russia is restoration. A decade of humiliation – economic, social and geopolitical – that followed its rebirth in 1991 became the defining narrative of the new nation.

MISLEADING LANGUAGE: Describing the absolute destruction caused by the fall of the USSR as “rebirth” is an absurd joke. People sold their medals, furniture and keepsakes for food, people froze to death in the streets.

At times, even the continued existence of the Russian Federation appeared under threat.

TRUE: This is true. Russia was in danger of Balkanisation. The possibility of dozens of anarchic microstates, many with access to nuclear weapons, was very real. Most rational people would consider this a bad thing. The achievement of Putin’s government in pulling Russia back from the brink should be applauded. Especially when compared with our Western governments who can barely even maintain the functional social security states created by their predecessors. Compare the NHS now with the NHS in 2000, compare Russia’s health service now to 17 years ago. Who do you think is really in trouble?

The second reason is that the parlous internal state of Russia – absurdist justice, a threadbare social safety net, a pyramid society in which a very few get very rich and the rest languish – creates moral ambivalence.

PROJECTION:… he actually makes this statement without even a hint of irony. The Tory government has killed people by slashing their benefits, and homeless people froze to death during the recent blizzards. The overall trend of British social structure has been down, for decades. Poverty is increasing all the time, food banks are opening and people are increasingly desperate. We are trending down. 20%, one in five British people, now live in poverty.

In that same time, as stated above, Russia’s poverty has gone down and down. 13% of Russians live in poverty, almost half the UK rate. In 2014, before we sanctioned Russia, it was only 10%. Even the briefest research would show this. Columnists like Rice-Oxley go out of their way to avoid inconvenient facts.

What is to be done? I wouldn’t respond with empty threats, Boris Johnson. No one cares.

Here we come to the centre of the shrubbery maze, up until now the column was just build up. Establishing a “problem” so he can pitch us a “solution”.

There are only two weaknesses in this bully’s defences. The first is his money. Britain needs to do something about the dodgy Russian billions swilling through its financial system. Make it really hard for Kremlin-connected money to buy football clubs or businesses or establish dodgy limited partnerships; stop oligarchs from raising capital on the London stock exchange. Don’t bother with sanctions. Just say: “No thanks, we don’t want your business.”

FALSE: This shows not even the most basic understanding of the way money works. Money being made in Russia and spent in London is bad for Russia. Sending billionaires back to Russia would inject money INTO the Russian economy. Either Rice-Oxley is actually a moron, or he is being deliberately dishonest.

What he REALLY means is that we should put pressure on the oligarchs, not to the hurt the Russian economy, but in the hopes the oligarchs will turn on Putin and remove him by undemocratic means.

He is pushing for backdoor regime change. And if you think I’m reading too much into this, then here…

The second is public opinion. The imminent presidential election is a foregone conclusion, but the mood in Russia can turn suddenly, as we saw in 1991, 1993 and 2011-2012.

Notice how quickly he dismisses the democratic will of the Russian people. Poor, stupid, “envious” Russians aren’t equipped to make their own decisions. We need to step in. “Public opinion” turning means a colour revolution. It means US backed regime change in a nuclear armed super-power. Backed by the cyberwarriors paid to spread Western propaganda online.

Maybe it’s time to try some new digital hearts-and-minds operation. In the internet age, Russians have already shown how public opinion can be manipulated. Perhaps our own secret digital marvels can embark on the kind of information counter-offensive to win over the many millions of Russians who share our values. Perhaps they already are.

The hypocrisy is mind-blowing, when I read this paragraph I was dumb-founded. Speechless. For months we’ve been hearing about how terrible Russia is for allegedly interfering in the American election. Damaging democracy with reporting true news out of context and some well placed memes.

Our response? Our defense of our “values”? Use the armies of online propagandists our governments employ – their existence was reported in the Guardian – in order to undermine, or undo the democratic will of the Russian people. Rice-Oxley is positing this with a straight face.

Russia is such a destabilising threat to “our democratic values”, such a moral vacuum, that we must use subterfuge to undermine their elections and remove their popular head of state.

Rice-Oxley wants to push and prod and provoke and antagonise a nuclear armed power that, at worst, is guilty of nothing but playing our game by our rules and winning. He wants to build a case for war with Russia, and he’s doing it on bedrock of cynical lies.

It’s all incredibly dangerous. Hopefully they’ll realise that before it’s too late. For all our sakes.

March 9, 2018 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , | 1 Comment

MI5 Poisons Another Russian Asset to Smear Putin in Ongoing Propaganda War

By Joe Quinn | March 6, 2018

As you may have noticed from the title, I’m cutting to the chase on this one. Context is everything these days when attempting to understand major geopolitical events.

Sergei Skripal is a former Russian army colonel who worked for Soviet military intelligence during the Cold War. In the late 1990s he was recruited by MI6 as a double agent. In December 2004, Skripal was arrested and charged with “high treason in the form of espionage”, convicted and sentenced to 13 years in prison. In July 2010, he was released as part of a spy exchange for ten Russian agents who had been arrested in the United States as part of the ‘Illegals Program’. Skripal was then settled in the UK by MI6 in the town of Salisbury. Yesterday he was found on a public bench with his 33 year old daughter, Yulia. Both were incoherent and/or incapacitated. When medical personnel arrived, some of them also allegedly became ill.

Within a few hours of the discovery of the pair, the British media and politicians had decided that they had been poisoned at the behest of Vladimir Putin himself, with some as yet “unknown substance”. British newspapers said it, so it must be true. British Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, threatened fresh sanctions against Russia if it is proven to have poisoned a Russian double agent and branded the country “a malign and disruptive force”. No evidence was cited to back up any of these allegations, because everyone ‘knows’ that Putin is a ruthless dictator who just loves to bump off people that he doesn’t like. British newspapers and politicians said it, so it must be true.

For the unfortunate cretins who still refuse to swallow the anti-Russia narrative, the British government and media duly require you to remember the case of Alexander Litvinenko, another former Russian intelligence agent who became a British intelligence asset. Litvinenko was, ‘everyone knows’ murdered in 2006 by polonium that was given to him by two Russian spies on the ‘direct orders of Putin’. The problem is that there was, and is today, no hard evidence for this claim. But who needs evidence when you have a propaganda bullhorn to addle the public brain. Mush-for-brains are highly averse to evidence anyway. It’s much better to quote the words of people like Alexander Goldfarb, long term anti-Putin activist, author of Litvinenko’s death bed testimony accusing Putin, and promoter of the activities of ‘Pussy Riot’. On the Skripal situation, Goldfarb, who was (coincidentally) a close friend of Skripal, said:

“Any reasonable person would think immediately that Russia had the opportunity, motive and a prior history of this kind of crime so it is reasonable to think it was involved in this attack. This is the Kremlin’s modus operandi. There are plenty of precedents. ‘What’s interesting now is that this happens just before Russia’s presidential election.”

The Skripal event, and the way it is being reported, cannot be understood except in the context of the vicious and persistent defamation and slander campaign that Western governments and media have waged against Russia over the past several years. To put it another way, the Skripal event is simply one more chapter in that defamation campaign. The reasons for the West’s anti-Russia hysteria have everything to do with the fact that, over the past 10-15 years, Russia has re-emerged as a powerful independent player on the world stage, capable of pushing back long-standing Anglo-American designs on global control. Exceptional nations with a serious megalomaniacal streak (and their lackeys) don’t like being pushed back, not even an inch. When they don’t get their way, and lack the cojones to engage in a fair fight, they resort to dirty tricks and smear campaigns, at which they are very adept.

But really, is there NO evidence? Well, the UK Independent informed its readers today that, while there is still no word on any toxicology reports, ‘some experts’ suggest that Skirpal and his daughter may have been poisoned by ‘nerve agents’ because a witness described Mr Skripal and his daughter vomiting, twitching and unable to move. The Indy hacks then informed us that among the most powerful nerve agents is VX, “a toxin developed at the British Ministry of Defence Porton Down facility, which was used to assassinate Kim Jong-nam – the brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in February 2017″.

Without a hint of irony, Salisbury MP John Glen told the BBC today: “Fortunately just down the road in my constituency at Porton Down defence, science and technology labs exist and they will have taken the substance and will be trying to evaluate what they can, no doubt.” Indeed, Porton Down is about 5 miles from the bench where Skripal and his daughter were found. Very fortunate indeed, and more than a little coincidental.

The name of the research facility at Porton Down has undergone many changes over the years, although the words “chemical” and “defence” have been consistently used, giving the impression that…well….that it is used only for research into “defence” against “chemical” weapons. In 1991, however, the UK “Centre for Applied Microbiology and Research” moved to the Porton Down facility and its name was changed to the “Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment”, reflecting the addition of biological warfare agent research to the list of “services” that Porton Down offered. In 2004, with PC culture in full bloom in Western nations, the name was sanitized somewhat to ‘Defence Science and Technology Laboratory’.

Some of the known highlights of the Porton Down facility include:

When the foot-and-mouth virus ravaged British cattle in 2002, it was later revealed that the outbreak was likely caused when a phial of the virus ‘went missing’ from the facility.

Between the 1950s and 1980s, 20,000 ‘volunteers’ were unwittingly involved in a chemical and biological weapons trials at Porton Down that left them with long-term ill health.

Ronald Maddison

Ronald Maddison

20-year-old Ronald Maddison died 45 minutes after 200mg of the deadly nerve agent sarin was dripped onto a patch of uniform taped to his arm at Porton Down. He was told he was testing a flu vaccine.

Thousands of British orphans who were regarded as “feeble-minded” were allegedly used for trialing drugs for use in the Cold War

While no official source has confirmed it (for obvious reasons) it’s highly likely that Skirpal was settled by MI5 in Salisbury because his new job was five miles away at Porton Down. Perhaps the most dangerous part of working for Western intelligence agencies in the 21st century, particularly if you are a Russian double agent, is that your life is implicitly forfeit in service to the West’s new great game of ‘stop Russia at all costs’. Litvinenko and now (most likely) Skirpal and his daughter found that out a little too late.

March 7, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular | , , | 10 Comments