From [TBC] To The Polar Lands - Rolling Russia / "Near Abroad" News Thread

Tabloid press are going to have a field day with a British bobby being poisoned by the dastardly Russkies.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said foreign media had used the incident as part of an anti-Russian campaign.

"It's a traditional campaign. The tradition is to make things up. We can only see it as a provocation," she said.

Just another enemy of the Russian state poisoned in England, this time a nerve agent. nbd.

It is now clear that Mr Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia.

This is part of a group of nerve agents known as ‘Novichok’.

Based on the positive identification of this chemical agent by world-leading experts at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down; our knowledge that Russia has previously produced this agent and would still be capable of doing so; Russia’s record of conducting state-sponsored assassinations; and our assessment that Russia views some defectors as legitimate targets for assassinations; the Government has concluded that it is highly likely that Russia was responsible for the act against Sergei and Yulia Skripal.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DYGzAysX4AEZMLH.jpg

Atropine auto-injectors are useless against this.

The UK government has apparently given Russia a deadline of midnight tonight to respond meaningfully to the situation - which seems fair enough. They've issued nothing but flat denials so far.

Most of the pundits i follow are still struggling with the 'why?' though. There doesn't seem to be an obvious logic to offing an old spy in such an outrageous and public way - guaranteed to strengthen sanctions and with a narrow window for plausible deniability - a few days before the election. Most people think this is more likely to suppress the vote and bring out the protest vote than drive people to the polls.

Even if it wasn't intended to go down the way it went, a former Russian spy dying suddenly with unusual symptoms a ten minute drive from Europe's largest stockpile of chemical and biological weapons is always going to get a full investigation.

The main theories seem to be the Kremlin sending a message to its spy network and hang the consequences, some kind of steer from the top but mid-level FSB people running with a completely stupid plan off their own bat or, potentially most worrying, hardline militarist / nationalist factions within the Russian security services going rogue in order to undermine Putin and force a confrontation. I don't know how any of that ranks in terms of credibility.

If you listened to BBC propaganda you might think Putin had absolute control over the FSB.

that bbc 2 Putin doc was abysmal, really waiting with bated breath to hear William Hague's next earth shattering insights on the intrigues within the Russian Federation, not.

xp the hardliner theory is indeed worrying, but why bother forcing a confrontation with the UK? I suppose because it's currently diplomatically isolated as a result of Brexit and Trump's Russian ambivalence?

I think the assumption is that an attack in / on the UK is going to trigger a response from the EU, NATO and the US. The UK is also the base of a large proportion of Putin's closest allies - there's already talk of targeted reprisals against Abramovich, etc. Squeezing the people who keep Russia tied to Europe, and Europe tied to Russia, could be an effective way to cause a more definitive rift. Again, idk how credible this is.

gotcha, thx.

"there's already talk of targeted reprisals against Abramovich"

an assassin could be concealing deadly nerve agents within his hair-weave, security will have to be stepped up.

Anything that harms Chelsea FC is obviously a good thing.

Margarita Simonyan has just said it is “Хайли лайкли” that OFCOM will pull RT’s license (backed up by hints from OFCOM itself) - which will mean the reciprocal removal of BBC Russia’s ability to operate, another blow to independent reporting in the country.

well that's a result for putin innit

Yep, it’s the one area in which tit for tat sanctions / closures actively work in his favour.

The idea of BBC Russia being a bastion of quality reportage and impartiality seems quite odd from a UK perspective.

They’ve done really well with it, tbf. They hired a bunch of smart young Russian reporters who had worked at some of the independent papers that got bought out by oligarchs and gave them a reliable outlet for investigative reporting. Would be nice if they did the same here.

Their reportage on Corbyn rightly calling out all the Tory MPs on the payroll of Russian oligarchs has been fucking disgraceful so far.

Sergei Lavrov has apparently said that the UK can stuff their deadline as they haven’t shared any case details / evidence and have not given Russia a chance to analyse the nerve agent to verify / trace it - so there is nothing to respond to. This is not going to end well.

Another notable success for Theresa May on the horizon.

Gavin Williamson had been doing yapping lots of implausible hardman talk about Russia pre-Skripal, but now shit has got live it's all about taking on the domestic evil of the SNP!

At this point, anyone who gives Russia the benefit of the doubt is a complete idiot.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/13/russian-exile-nikolai-glushkov-found-dead-at-his-london-home

https://medium.com/@leftoutside/six-reasons-i-dont-see-this-russian-poisoning-playing-out-well-for-theresa-may-s-tories-bbb08350ec96

^ i'd strongly disagree with almost all of that, tbh. The most relevant point may be no.5 - the idea that there is too much Russian money in the UK to hit back effectively with domestic reprisals, but even then, it seems like a massive risk to assume that there won't be a strengthening of international sanctions, for example. A bunch of European countries (Italy, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, France to some extent) are experiencing a certain amount of sanctions fatigue but the UK has been relatively steadfast, tbh, and there's going to be an expectation that May will continue with that line or double down.

I'm sympathetic to the perceived need to defend Corbyn against NatSec smears but using trashy, ludicrous Buzzfeed pieces about the Tories turning a blind eye to murder is not the way.

A possibility? But he seems to be evading the specific puported role of Porton Down. https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/03/russian-to-judgement/

Oh no, not Craig Murray now.

Murray’s not the only one who has pointed out it’s a strange coincidence that Skripal lived and was poisoned a few minutes away from the only place in the UK, and one of the few in Europe, producing nerve agents but it’s difficult to see it as anything but that. I’d guess there’s just a lot of top secret stuff around Salisbury and they settle ex-spies around there for the sake of convenience.

Yeah, I don't find it convincing re Porton Down but I wondered whether any of the rest of it (Mossad, Miller) made any sense. I'm not a regular Murray reader so not sure how this sits within his broader world view.

I think he’s just pulling theories out of his hat to suggest that they’re not much more implausible than the prevailing wisdom, tbh. He is occasionally worth listening to but generally more of a devil’s advocate than a serious analyst these days.

Interesting in passing , Kommersant has dug up a story from 1995 in which a lab tech sold Novichok to a hitman who used it to kill a banker on behalf of one of his rivals. You’d hope that Russia keeps a better check on their stocks now than they did back when Aum Shinrikyo were able to buy military attack helicopters on the black market though.

i was mildly irritated* by the constant reference to "military grade nerve agents", viz not the kind you can buy across the counter in boots i guess

*lol #subeditorproblems

and my feeling -- admittedly on rereading after SV's mild snort of mockery -- abt the medium piece is that it's less abt "omg all these overlooked assassinations add up to a story that will topple may" than "this is a tougher headwind for the tories than they quite seem to have grasped yet", given what the public are exercised by (high-street poisoning in a salisbury zizzi's)* and cross about (a plague of billionaire oligarchs owning football clubs and whatever else)**

*which fair enough tbh
**bcz this crosses over into territories politicians anxiously want to have a good profile in but mostly only access viz crappy authentocrat posturing

(the weird thing is in the last week or so the alerts i've been getting on my laptop are all from RT, and no one else)

I've been so oblivious to them I thought they were called Russian Times.

it stands for ReTweet iirc

The Medium piece, to me, aligns with a lot of the attacks i've been seeing from the amorphous left (Owen Jones, Paul Mason, arguably Corbyn, etc) suggesting something on a continuum from 'the Tories are too weak to stand up to Russia' to 'Russia did this because they know the Tories are compromised' - with 'compromised' meaning anything from 'have taken money so are unwilling to criticise' to 'have covered up multiple murders'.

In terms of the optics, the bulk of the criticism i've seen of Corbyn recently hasn't been around the 'robust dialogue' line being too weak, it has been the idea that in a serious crisis situation, he was trying to score party-political points.

maybe, but that last is a critique from inside the er horse-race bubble i think

I am not sure that's entirely true. My suspicion, which admittedly isn't based on a great deal, is that there are lots of people out there who might like or agree (to some extent) with Corbyn but won't vote for him on the basis that he's not a 'serious politician'. Certainly more than the number who won't vote for him based on the idea that he's a Czech spy. The fetishisation of 'statesmanship' is still a big thing and May's cluelessness over Brexit, etc, has damaged her in that area as well but i'm not sure going on the attack at a time when May was, in theory, fronting up to a dastardly enemy threatening the lives of British bobbies and Zizzi diners alike, is going to go down well.

apparently Corbyn was ashen faced after getting jeered in parliament the other day, and didn't get much support from his own, either. But I still think that MP's taking bungs from Russian oligarchs is very pertinent and should be called out. But if it is a losing strategy, then perhaps stfu for the time being.

there's no way to tell in the medium term if it's a winning or a losing strategy -- i like that corbyn is unflappable and completely ignores the conventional wisdoms of commentators (which are always about TODAY'S PANIC and generally forgotten in five days time), and in the VERY long-term he's been right over quite a lot of very big things (such as various wars he opposed, or gay rights or whatever)

the idea that the lesson he's learned from this -- a lesson that done reasonably well for him over recent months -- is suddenly in this instance the wrong lesson is entirely possible! but i think he would look a lot less convincing changing tack and being all hilary benn about this situation

I'm sorry, it seems to me Corbyn is completely bungling this moment. He is both calling for dialogue and allowing the Russians to do their own tests of the nerve agent (which, yeah, that'll be a believable result...) while going on the offensive over Russian donations. It seems hypocritical? And also stuck in 2003.

or to put it another way (xp to me), most modern politicians inhabit the space between tactics and strategy, while corbyn largely inhabits the space between strategy and ethics: how this will work out for him here depends on the degree to which the government fuck things up, or i suppose possibly don't fuck things up (but as far as i can see not fucking things up means tacking closer to his line than to sating the yells of the backbenches)

corbyn was of course correct in 2003

And we are not in 2003 anymore

i know reading other people's posts carefully isn't part of your skillset fred but why not try and put my argument together based on what i just wrote

Because it's boring and banal. Sorry.

The idea that somewhat nonsensical statements from Corbyn aren't as bad because it's Corbyn being Corbyn and he is interested in long run things and was right fifteen years ago. It's besides the point of what to do in this specific situation.

OK:
corbs believes that he really doesn't need to "win the day", day after day (this would be tactics): he believes that sticking to his line -- his ethos -- will gradually win him the medium-term argument: the evidence over the past year suggests that to date he's right about this and that this strategy has worked for him (partly of course bcz may's govt has so effectively worked for him). this is why suddenly shrieking "may is a genius and war is now good!" will (a) not actually advance his own cause here and now, and (b) not at all advance his politics. even if he did it, he wouldn't win the day, he'd just hand the win to her

the idea that the lesson he's learned from this… is suddenly in this instance the wrong lesson is entirely possible!

the most boring and banal point of all presumably^^^

A bunch of the Shadow Cabinet are apparently poised to resign over his statement today.

He is right on following proper international / legal processes, though - if only because it gives the Russian government less room to argue it's a stitch-up. iirc there's an obligation to hand over samples in cases where a party to the non-proliferation treaty is accused of a breach and the more eyes on this (UN, EU, etc) the better in making the case.

Fred seeing how many continents he can be wrong on at once.