The Skripal Affair Revisited

The British government’s anti-Russian, propaganda and the media’s anti-Russian, fake news stories did not begin with the Ukrainian conflict. They have been spewing out Russophobic garbage for decades. Back in 2018, one of the most ridiculous exampes of this was the alleged Novichok poisoing case.

Two people were found comatose on bench in the English city of Salisbury. Initially, the local press said two people were found suffering from Fentanyl poisioning. However, once they had been identified as Sergei Skripal, an ex-Russian military double agent working for British Intelligence services, and his daughter, Yulia, the British anti-Russian propaganda unit went in to overdirve.

Within days, with no evidence whatsoever, the Russians were accused of poisoning them with the toxin, novichok. From there, the story just got more preposterous and unbelivebale with every passing day.

I wrote 3 short articles over the space of few months detailing the whole, luricorus saga as it unfolded. Below is the first of them.

The Skripal Affair – It Doesn’t Add Up.

If ever proof was needed that the entire British mainstream media are mere puppets for the government and those behind the scenes that control them, the Sergei Skripal affair has provided it. With absolutely no evidence whatsoever, and even less motive, the British government has summarily decided Vladimir Putin is guilty of attempted murder. The Russophobic press and BBC have gleefully accepted the verdict without question and have been spewing out groundless propaganda ever since.

When a crime is committed, there are a few essential elements required to accurately ascertain who the culprit may be. You need motive, evidence and, usually, a murder weapon. In this case, however, the British Government and their sycophants in the media have decided to abandon the traditional approach to criminal investigation and have simply convicted Russia from the outset. How very democratic of them.

Anyone with a modicum of intelligence and without an agenda to pursue would see there are so many holes in the government’s theory that it just doesn’t hold water. So, why are the media not asking any questions?

The Motive

Firstly, what is the motive? What could Russia possibly gain from murdering Mr Skripal? He was traded in a spy exchange in 2010.  Surely, he would have told western intelligence agencies all he knew after 8 years. There is absolutely no benefit to Russia in killing Skripal. Other parties, however, do have a lot to be gained.

One of the first retaliatory measures to be mooted was the potential banning of Russia TV from the UK.  It was claimed that this news outlet is simply a propaganda machine for Moscow. This was claimed without a hint of irony, obviously ignoring the BBC’s role in pushing various governments’ agendas over the years. This would mean one of the only sources that would not be genuflecting to Downing Street and wouldn’t be overtly anti-Russian would not be able to get its voice heard. It is clear who would benefit from this.

It was also suggested that Russia could be banned from the UN Security council. Again, it is obvious who gains from this scenario. The western allies would be one step closer to invading whatever countries they see fit without the veto of Russia. There would still, of course, be the obstacle of China who also sit on the council, who will no doubt be the inevitable victims of ever-increasing demonization in the future.

Brexit is another issue affected by this incident. Until this happened the United Kingdom’s Brexit negotiations with the EU were difficult and often bitter. Now, Theresa May has called on her EU partners to back her stance and they have united against Russia, the common enemy, bringing  both parties closer together and smoothing the way for more amiable  negotiations. It could, of course, also have the effect that most politicians and corporations desire  – another referendum on EU membership on thegrounds that the only way the U.K. can protect itself against the imaginary threat of Russia is to keep our close ties with our European allies, meaning staying in the EU for security reasons.

Either way, Theresa May has certainly benefitted. She is now strutting about thinking she is a distinguished statesperson rather than limping along like the hapless, lame duck prime minister she was previously.

Long term, if this manufactured crisis spirals our of control,  the main beneficiaries will be those that profit from war – the sellers of arms and associated paraphernalia, those that have shares in their companies and those that receive donations or funding from them.

The Evidence

So what is the evidence that Russia tried to kill Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia? The simple answer is, none whatsoever. There are no eyewitnesses to the crime. There are no fingerprints and no DNA. There is no CCTV footage of the incident. In fact the police do not even know where the crime took place.

At first they thought the poisoning took place at the pub that the victims visited. Then they thought it might be the restaurant. Other possible crime scenes have been Skripal’s home or car and it has even been suggested that his daughter could have brought the toxin into the country in her luggage.

The Weapon

Initially, mystery shrouded the poison that was used in the attack but on 12^th March it was announced that it was novichok, a group of nerve agents which had purportedly been developed by the Russians in the 70s and 80s. There was, however, a major problem with this conclusion. Until this point nobody actually believed that novichok-like weapons had actually been made. The only evidence of their existence came from the Russian dissident chemist Vil Mirzayanov who has made, as yet unproven claims, that he helped develop them. However, scientists in the west were not convinced by his claims and the official body responsible for listing banned chemical weapons, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical weapons, never included novichok on their list as they doubted its existence.

It Doesn’t Add Up

Even if novichok had been successfully developed by Russia, why use it to kill an ex-spy on foreign soil when they could have murdered him when he was in jail in Russia. Even if the Russians decided, for whatever reason, that Salisbury provided the best opportunity to kill him, why do it when he is with his daughter and why use novichok? Surely, the most obvious way to murder someone without arousing suspicion would be to make the death look natural, perhaps by using a substance that causes a heart attack and you certainly wouldn’t poison their daughter at the same time making it obvious the cause of death wasn’t natural.

Basically, if Russia was guilty, instead of covering their tracks to conceal the fact, they have allegedly used one of their own nerve agents and killed two people in the middle of a street, in a foreign country, in daylight. Russian intelligence services may be a lot of things but amateurish and stupid wouldn’t be two of them.

The British government also falsely claimed that the Russians are the only people capable of producing novichok but Mirzayanov published the alleged formula in a book in 2008. Moreover, it is not that difficult to produce and could be manufactured by any competent chemist. It should also be noted that Russia has already been cleared of having chemical weapons by a team of international inspectors.

The latest glaring discrepancy in the ‘Russia did it’ theory is the fact that on the 12th March the British government confidently announced the nerve agent used was novichok, only 7 days after the attack took place. This is despite the fact that there are supposedly no samples of this substance anywhere in the world apart from, allegedly, Russia. This is extremely  odd as the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons have now been invited to examine the substance that was used in the attack and they claim it will take them at least two weeks to verify the exact nature of the substance. How come the British government scientists have claimed they have identified the substance in half the time the international experts claimed it would take them and yet they don’t even have a sample with which to compare it? There are only two possibilities. The British government have not identified any

toxin at all or they already had a sample available to them, probably manufactured in their Porton Down facility. Either way, it makes the accusations that Russia were the only people capable of this crime even more tenuous than they were at first.

Will we come to our senses?

It appears the lessons of Iraq and the non-existent weapons of mass destruction and the dodgy dossier have not been learned. This is no surprise as successive British governments and their obsequious cohorts in the media continually push to go to war with everybody and anybody and bay for blood at every opportunity as if they are part of some bloodthirsty cult that revels in death and destruction. This time, maybe the madness will subside and common sense will eventually prevail in this tragic saga.One can only hope.