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Spy poisoning: why Putin may have engineered gruesome calling card
[Guardian] Insiders say all trails lead back to Moscow, suggesting a deliberate act to incite row with UKThe response from the Kremlin has been uncompromising. The foreign ministry described Theresa May’s accusation against Moscow as a "circus show". Its boss Sergei Lavrov said there was no proof the poison used against Sergei Skripal came from Russia. And the embassy in London promised an "equal and opposite reaction" to any UK measures. Beneath this bluster, however, is cool calculation. Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in Salisbury with a Moscow-made military nerve agent, developed during the 1970s and 1980s during the cold war. Whoever wanted to murder him might have used a subtler weapon. Instead, his assassins picked novichok. How it was deployed remains unclear. One former employee of the Russian special services said nerve agents were used only if the goal was to draw attention. "This is a very dirty method. There’s a risk of contaminating other people, which creates additional difficulties," he told the Kommersant newspaper, adding: "There are far more delicate methods that professionals use." In other words, novichok was a gruesome calling card. As those who organised the hit must have known, the trail goes directly back to Moscow. The incident even took place down the road from Porton Down, the government’s military research base, which swiftly tested and identified the toxin. All of which means Vladimir Putin and his FSB spy agency have probably sought to engineer a confrontation with the UK. Why now? Russian double agent was poisoned when he opened his red BMW [MAIL] Whitehall sources last night said Mr Skripal was poisoned when he touched the door handle of his car, which had been smeared with a deadly nerve agent. Detectives said the pair arrived in the city at about 1.40pm but officers want CCTV from 1pm. Mr Skripal’s home is a ten-minute drive from where he parked, raising questions about what they were doing in the meantime. Speaking at Scotland Yard, Mr Basu said: 'The public are going to continue to see a great deal of police activity in and around the city, including potentially more cordons being erected, but please don't be alarmed.
Posted by: Besoeker 2018-03-14 |
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