The Lemon Fool

Any doubt I had about those two Russians being responsible for the Salisbury attack (and I had some) has disappeared with that Russian state sponsored TV interview.
Totally implausible explanation and an incredible own goal by Moscow.
I just worry that something so clumsy means they couldn't give a toss for what anyone in the West thinks.

Let's face it, there was no way they were going to say "It's a fair cop guv, we did it"

And with the evidence we have been presented with, I can't envisage any plausible explanation. For sure, they couldn't give a toss

--kiloran

The evidence we've seen comes from British Propaganda. Some of it is credible, some isn't.

Overall, neither side is credible.

Beerpig wrote:Any doubt I had about those two Russians being responsible for the Salisbury attack (and I had some) has disappeared with that Russian state sponsored TV interview.
Totally implausible explanation and an incredible own goal by Moscow.
I just worry that something so clumsy means they couldn't give a toss for what anyone in the West thinks.

My view is they are working up a casus belli.

GS

GoSeigen wrote:My view is they are working up a casus belli.

Please sir! Could you explain that for the dim country folk at the back? (me)

UncleEbenezer wrote:The evidence we've seen comes from British Propaganda. Some of it is credible, some isn't.

Overall, neither side is credible.

I've only seen a few news reports.

Which part of the British evidence we have seen so far do you consider not credible? Not trying to start an argument, genuinely interested.

DM

dionaeamuscipula wrote:Which part of the British evidence we have seen so far do you consider not credible? Not trying to start an argument, genuinely interested.

DM

It all started in childhood, with the story of the boy who cried "wolf".

Or it all started with the bogus argument presented to us: "It was Novichok, which proves it was Russia". Once our politicians have given us such a blatant lie, they lose all credibility. Novichok was analysed by the West back in the Cold War era, and we know that several Western research facilities (like Porton Down) produced it in (or by) the 1990s.

Add that to the prevalent general tone of demonising Russia for some of the West's own evils.

Recent evidence - the story of those two men - would've looked much more convincing were it not for the context.

UncleEbenezer wrote:Recent evidence - the story of those two men - would've looked much more convincing were it not for the context.

And the fat that you can see Salisbury Cathedral from the exit from Salisbury station.
And there was almost no snow.
And they were walking away from the cathedral.

Slarti

So let us consider, as proposed by Putin, if it was the British Government that did it. This means that our government arranged for someone to be on standby with Novichok, waiting for two innocent Russian tourists to visit Salisbury, and go wandering through the streets away from the Cathedral.
And going back to the Polonium poisoning in 2006, it would mean that our government had someone on standby with Polonium waiting for a Russian to visit Litvinenko.
And this supposes that our government did all this with the support of a variety of Prime Ministers and Foreign Secretaries, who thought that it was a good idea in order to whip up support for sanctions on Russia. And they were not concerned that a future Prime Minister or Foreign Secretary would spill the beans. No - I don't buy this for a minute.

scotia wrote:So let us consider, as proposed by Putin, if it was the British Government that did it. This means that our government arranged for someone to be on standby with Novichok, waiting for two innocent Russian tourists to visit Salisbury, and go wandering through the streets away from the Cathedral.

Implausible indeed. I don't think it likely.

However, it's not beyond what a spy's mind might dream up. And they've confirmed that spy-turned-novelist John Le Carre's cold war plots are indeed realistic fiction. Plots that involved even more elaborate and implausible set-ups, fifty years ago. Just consider the chain of events to incriminate their own double-agent Mundt and thus ultimately hook his would-be nemesis in the spy who came in from the cold, and what you outline above seems mundane by comparison.

I guess one could say the same of Litvinenko, but circumstances were different then, and I never saw reason to question the official line. Not that I even remember that in detail: was the finger pointed straight at Putin, or was the Russian-London mafia thought a likely suspect?

Guilty.

UncleEbenezer wrote: or was the Russian-London mafia thought a likely suspect?

In both cases, of a substantial amount of Polonium and Novichok , I find it difficult to believe that anyone, apart from a Government, could obtain both of these very different components that are held in very different establishments with strict record checks. And if it were just the Russian Mafia, they have many much simpler ways of disposing of victims. To me the use of Polonium and Novichok looks like a very pointed way of Putin warning expatriates that he has very long tentacles, and a very long memory. He was a KGB officer for 16 years, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.