07.04.2018 - Worthless Poison, Dead Pets, Deleted Tweets & Other Nonsense in the Skripal Case
Worthless Poison, Dead Pets, Deleted Tweets & Other Nonsense in the Skripal Case
New details revealed this week in the inquiry into the UK poisoning of a Russian ex-spy haven't clarified the situation, but did undermine London's claims of Russian culpability, while highlighting the folly of the British media's speculation-driven reporting. Sputnik recalls the four most absurd details the world learned about the case this week.
Miracle Healing - Definitely the biggest sensation in the Skripal story this week was the confirmation that both
Yulia and
her father are no longer in critical condition and making good progress in their recovery.
News of their improving condition must be especially surprising to the UK's chemical weapons experts, and to Prime Minister May and Foreign Secretary Johnson, who claimed following the attack that the Skripals were struck by a powerful Russian military-grade nerve agent which leaves little chance of survival.
British and US media
described the nerve agent as "the most deadly ever made." A New York Times piece from March 13 shocked readers with the
headline "The Nerve Agent Too Deadly to Use, Until Someone Did," accompanied by an image of a scowling Foreign Minister Lavrov against the backdrop of a Russian flag.
But the improvement to the Skripals' condition has forced these same media to backtrack, and to ask the uncomfortable question of how exactly the ex-spy and his daughter could possible survive such a deadly attack.
The Washington Post was the most blunt,
asking "why aren't the Skripals dead?" Medical and toxicology experts told the newspaper and other media that the pair's "miraculous" recovery came down to the fantastic medical care they received at Salisbury Hospital.
Russian officials unanimously
welcomed the news of the Skripals' improving condition, but joined in asking just how all this was possible if, as London claims, this was all a "'military-grade state-sponsored' assassination attempt" by Russia.
Three Real Victims: The Skripals' Pets - Another scandalous moment in the Skripal case came late in the week, and involved the family's pets – a cat named Nash van Drake and two guinea pigs. Officials told UK media that the cat was taken to the military lab at Porton Down, put down and cremated. As for the guinea pigs, they were left in Sergei Skripal's home long enough to starve to death.
News of the pets' death prompted animal rights activists to charge British police with animal cruelty.
Back in Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova suggested it was
highly suspicious that the Skripal's cat, who "could have become an important piece of evidence in the chemical poisoning case," were not only starved to death and put down, but cremated as well. The Russian Embassy in the UK echoed this sentiment.
Embarrassing Tweets - London's case against Russia suffered another blow this week, after an admission by Porton Down defense lab chief Gary Aitkenhead that experts could not actually trace its origin. The scientist's remarks prompted the Foreign office to delete a tweet which said point-blank that the nerve agent came from Russia, and led British opposition lawmakers to attack Boris Johnson, who adamantly claimed that Porton Down had given him rock-solid evidence of Russian involvement.
Yasenevo, Saratov, The Kremlin Basement? - Even after Porton Down lab admitted that it could not trace the chemical agent's origin, some media continued to claim they knew the location of the
"covert Russian lab" used to create it.
The Sun cited unnamed 'security sources' who said that the poison came from an SRV foreign intelligence service lab in the Moscow district of Yasenevo. The Times, meanwhile,
insisted that it was made in a lab in the town of Shikhany, Saratov, about 730 km southeast of Moscow.
The guessing game came to an end Friday after Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons representative Mikhail Babich issued a
statement which said that chemical weapons were never produced or stored at the Shikhany research facility.
Altogether, the details revealed this week about the Skripal case have not only severely undermined London's claims about Russian involvement, but led the public in the UK and many Western countries to ask just what exactly happened in Salisbury on March 4.
07.04.2018 - Skripal's Niece Victoria Asks Theresa May To Reconsider UK Visa Issue - Reports
Skripal's Niece Victoria Asks Theresa May to Reconsider UK Visa Issue - Reports
On Friday, the UK authorities refused to issue a visa for Victoria Skripal on "the grounds that her application did not comply with the Immigration Rules;" the decision has caused harsh criticism from Russian authorities with the latter urging London to provide explanation.
Yulia Skripal's cousin, who has regained consciousness and the ability to talk after being poisoned in early March, has turned to UK Prime Minister Theresa May to reconsider the visa issue, according to Sky News.
In her address to the prime minister, Victoria Skripal said she wanted, first of all, to visit her uncle and cousin in order to pass information regarding their medical condition to her grandmother.
In her address to the prime minister, Victoria Skripal said she wanted, first of all, to visit her uncle and cousin in order to pass information regarding their medical condition to her grandmother.
"The whole world is now talking about an unprecedented political scandal, but real people are in the epicenter of this scandal. This is our family, which needs to be together now," she said to the channel in Russian.
Victoria Skripal said to Russian media that she had been informed by the Russian Embassy in the UK that
the reason behind her visa refusal was that Yulia Skripal "seemingly" doesn't want to see her.
The UK Home Office has refused to issue a visa to Victoria Skripal, saying "her application did not comply with the Immigration Rules." While the former spy's niece believes that the "British must have something to hide," the Russian authorities have demanded that London provide an explanation on the refusal.
Meanwhile, reports have emerged stating that Sergei Skripal, a former GRU officer, has regained consciousness and his ability to speak. His daughter has been awake for several days. The medics have said that their health has been improving rapidly.
16.03.2018 - UK’s ‘highly likely’ argument on Russian involvement in Skripal case failed – envoy to UN
UK’s ‘highly likely’ argument on Russian involvement in Skripal case failed – envoy to UN
London and its allies would demonstrate their reluctance to get to the truth about the poisoning episode in the British city of Salisbury unless they support it, the Russian diplomat stated.
The failure by UK experts to establish the origins of the chemical agent used in the Salisbury poisoning has utterly eroded London’s claims about Moscow’s involvement, the Russian Ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya said on Thursday at an open meeting of the UN Security Council.
"Gary Aitkenhead, chief executive of the laboratory at Porton Down said in this connection his laboratory had established that a weapons-grade nerve agent had been utilized but they had failed to confirm its origins," Nebenzya recalled. "All of this means the main argument waved by the British side that the agent was overwhelmingly likely of Russian origin has crumbled to pieces right in front of our eyes."
"In the meantime, the whole system of so-called evidence was built exactly around the suppositions on the ‘highly likely’ big degree of Russia’s involvement in the case," he recalled.
"We must praise Mr. Aitkenhead, who didn’t sacrifice his professional standing for the purpose of suiting the schemes of the British authorities," he said. "Along with it, Aitkenhead indicated there was no way that anything like that would have come from them or would have left the four walls of their facility."
"The question is what is it?" Nebenzya said. "What precisely would have never left the lab? Does the Organization of the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons know about it?"
He said, however, that Aitkenhead’s confession only added to the murkiness of the Salisbury case.
Moscow has prepared a draft statement for the UN Security Council, Vasily Nebenzya said, adding that London and its allies would demonstrate their reluctance to get to the truth about the poisoning episode in the British city of Salisbury unless they support it. "We have prepared a draft statement for the Council. It will be a litmus test as to whether the UK and its allies are true to their words," he said. Rejecting that test will be a confirmation of their "dirty games," the diplomat added.
The Russian ambassador to the UN further castigated the UK’s ‘absurd and immoral’ allegations about Moscow’s involvement in the Salisbury poisoning.
UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson "has made absurd and immoral suggestions that the incident in Salisbury was allegedly advantageous for Moscow to unite people ahead of the election," the diplomat said.
"As immoral is his comparison between the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia and the 1936 Berlin Olympics, which unlike the Soviet Union, was attended by an impressive delegation from Britain, including high-ranked officials," he added.
Anti-Russian Propaganda - Moscow may discern the role of security services of a number of countries behind the case over the poisoning of the former Russian military intelligence officer and British spy Sergei Skripal and London's ruthless propaganda war against Russia, Vasily Nebenzya said.
"As substantiated proof of Russia's guilt, the British ambassador in Moscow demonstrated a six-page slide show to his colleagues, including the frontpage," Nebenzya said. "They pass off all these comic strips for its body of evidence, but there's nothing except the 'highly likely' proclamations in them."
"I think Prime Minister Theresa May showed this document to her counterparts in the EU, many of whom, but not everyone to their credit, accepted this as convincing proof of Russia's guilt," he said.
Nebenzya dismissed Boris Johnson's words about the 'dead cat' as red herring aimed at diverting attention from other problems.
"This exposes in bold relief the methods of propaganda warfare without any rules that the UK is conducting against Russia," he said.
Speaking of the methods of this warfare, Nebenzya did not rule out it was steered by еру secret services of a number of counties.
"We can suppose with a great degree of likelihood the role, which the secret service of a number of countries have played in this mega-provocation," Nebenzya said.
Moscow has not received any questions on Skripal case from London - The Russian side has not received from the UK a list of questions concerning the Salisbury incident, in fact, London comes up only with accusations, Russia’s UN Ambassador told.
"Boris Jonson continues convincing everybody that the British side has allegedly submitted to Russia a list of questions, to which it has received no answers as of yet. It’s exactly the other way around," he said.
"As I have already told you, there has not been and there is no list of questions to us," he said. "I am appealing to the British side - if you have them, list these questions, please, only without passing off as questions those charges categorically laid against us and demands to confess," Nebenzya said.
"Meanwhile, we have lots of questions for both London, the OPCW (Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons - TASS) and also for France, which all of a sudden has rushed to assist in verifying the results of the British ‘express investigation’ under no obvious provisions of the CWC (Chemical Weapons Convention). In response to our question, the French side said that Britain had informed France about its investigation in detail. Now that London refuses to provide information to us, probably Paris will share it with us?" the diplomat questioned.
On another investigation:
16.03.2018 - UK Police Open Murder Investigation over Death of Russian Businessman Glushkov
UK Police Open Murder Investigation Over Death of Russian Businessman Glushkov
UK Metropolitan Police said that they had opened a murder investigation after the death of Nikolai Glushkov, a former top manager of Russian Aeroflot airline, in London.
"A murder investigation has been launched following the results of a post-mortem into the death of 68-year-old Russian businessman Nikolay Glushkov … A special post-mortem began on Thursday, 15 March and we received the pathologist report today (Friday, 16 March), which gave the cause of death as compression to the neck," the UK Metropolitan Police's statement read.
The UK police were called by the London ambulance service at 22.46 pm on Monday after
Glushkov was found unconscious at his home in New Malden, south-west London.
On Tuesday, Russian Vedomosti newspaper owner Damian Kudryavtsev said that Glushkov, an associate of late Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, had passed away. Later that day, London police said that they were investigating the unexplained death of a man in his 60s.
07.04.2018 - Murder of Russian National Glishkov in UK has Political Dimension for Moscow
Murder of Russian National Glushkov in UK Has Political Dimension for Moscow
The murder of former top manager of Aeroflot carrier Nikolai Glushkov has not only a criminal but also a political dimension for Moscow, the Russian Embassy in London said Saturday.
Glushkov, sentenced in absentia in Russia to eight years in prison for embezzling from Aeroflot, died in London in mid-March. Scotland Yard reported that at that stage that it considered his death to be "mysterious." At the same time, the police said that Glushkov had been choked, and the incident had been qualified as a murder. Russian investigators opened their own probe into Glushkov's murder.
"According to UK media reports, the death of a Russian citizen occurred in very strange and mysterious circumstances immediately after the poisoning of the Skripal family.
The ambassador plans to use the advice of the UK Foreign Office and request a meeting with the head of the London police in order to invite the British side to inform us in detail about the progress of the investigation. For Russia, this murder has not only criminal, but also a political dimension," the embassy said in a statement.
The embassy said that it had just received a note from UK Foreign Office regarding Glushkov's death, but that note was actually meaningless.
"The embassy is grateful for the answer, but the note does not contain any information, except for sending us to London police in case we have questions. The embassy only asked UK authorities one favor — to inform us in detail about the investigation of the death of the Russian citizen. The question has been answered neither by the police nor by the Foreign Office, which can not but cause regrets," the embassy said.
Almost a month has passed since Glushkov's death and, like with the poisoning of the
Skripals, the UK side does not provide any information, the embassy noted.
"After our repeated appeals, we have nothing left but to assume that it is most likely has been done intentionally," the statement concluded.
