How UK Police Painstakingly Traced Suspects in Skripal Nerve-Agent Attack

Jonathon Gatehouse, CBC News

In this handout photo issued by the London Metropolitan Police, Salisbury Novichok poisoning suspects Alexander

Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov are shown on CCTV on Fisherton Road, Salisbury, the day of the nerve-agent attack.

(Metropolitan Police via Getty Images)

There are somewhere between 4 million and 6 million CCTV cameras in the United Kingdom, according to the best estimates.

The Metropolitan Police in London operate 10,000 of them. The city's underground has 11,000 in use. And the major rail network that spans the country boasts 4,000 more.

All of which helps explain how British investigators were able to track almost every step of the two Russian men they charged today in connection with the March 4 Novichok poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the southern city of Salisbury.

Alexander Petrov, right, and Ruslan Boshirov are suspected of poisoning former Russian spy Sergei Skripal

and his daughter Yulia. (EPA-EFE)

A team of 250 officers examined 11,000 hours of footage to zero-in on their suspects and then piece together how they carried out the attack.

Standing in the House of Commons this morning, Prime Minister Theresa May outlined the "painstaking and methodical work" that led police to identify and charge Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov in absentia with conspiracy to murder, attempted murder and possession and use of the deadly nerve agent. And to link the men to the later, presumably accidental, poisoning death of Dawn Sturgess and the sickening of her boyfriend Charlie Rowley.

May explained how the Russian pair arrived at London's Gatwick airport at 3 p.m. on Friday, March 2, aboard an Aeroflot flight. They then travelled to the city centre by train, taking the tube to their discount hotel near the main site of the 2012 Summer Games.

In this photo issued by the Metropolitan Police, Salisbury Novichok poisoning suspects Alexander

Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov are shown on CCTV at Salisbury train station on March 3.

(Metropolitan Police via Getty Images)

They journeyed by train to Salisbury the next afternoon, on what police believe was a reconnaissance mission, returning to London two hours later.

May described how on Sunday, March 4, the day the Skripals fell deathly ill, the two men took a morning train to Salisbury. They were filmed walking along a road near Sergei's home just before noon. By late afternoon, they were back in London and one their way to Heathrow, where they boarded another Aeroflot flight to Moscow, touching down in Russia before British authorities even figured out what they were dealing with.

"There is no other line of inquiry beyond this," May told the Commons, saying her government believes the two men are agents of the GRU, Russia's military intelligence service.

A reasonable assumption, although it is certainly possible they were working for someone who wants to destroy Putin. If that were the case, I seriously doubt that Putin would protect them as he appears to be doing. 

Skripal was, apparently, sharing info on Russian oligarchs to MI5, which would be the obvious motive for attempting to kill him. It means, Putin may not have been involved, or Putin may have been protecting the oligarchs, of which he is one. Again, his protection of the agents who appear to have administered the Novichok, may indicate the latter to be true.

A still image from CCTV footage recorded on Feb. 27, 2018, shows former Russian spy Sergei Skripal

buying groceries at the Bargain Stop convenience store in Salisbury. (AFP/Getty Images)

"As we made clear in March, only Russia had the technical means, operational experience and motive to carry out the attack."

At a news conference in London, Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, a senior counter-terrorism investigator, released a dozen images of the men, showing their arrival on British soil, journeys in London and Salisbury, and eventual departure.

He confirmed the Russian passports were authentic and that the men had used them to enter the U.K. on several previous occasions. But Basu said that police assume the names the men used are aliases, and appealed for information about their true identities.

Police also disclosed new details about how the Novichok was smuggled into the country, providing pictures of a bronze-coloured Nina Ricci 'Premier Jour' perfume box and bottle. The manufacturer says both are fakes.

The counterfeit perfume atomiser found at the property of Novichok poisoning victim Charlie Rowley

had a modified spray mechanism. (Metropolitan Police via Getty Images)

Detectives believe that the two men sprayed the nerve agent over Skripal's front door using a long white plastic spray nozzle.

In mid-June, Charlie Rowley found the perfume box and bottle inside a charity donation bin in the nearby town of Amesbury and took it home. He spilled some of the bottle's contents on his hands while attaching the nozzle. Sturgess, his partner, sprayed a great deal more on her wrists and fell ill almost immediately.

The U.K. has issued Europe-wide arrest warrants for the two suspects and has added their names to Interpol's red notice list, but there will be no formal extradition request as the Putin government will not allow its citizens to be tried overseas.

"Should either of these individuals ever again travel outside Russia, we will take every possible step to detain them, to extradite them and to bring them to face justice here in the United Kingdom," May told the House of Commons.

Yulia Skripal, who was poisoned in Salisbury along with her father, has recovered from the attack

and is seen here speaking to reporters in London on May 23. (Dylan Martinez/Reuters)

And in the interim, the U.K. will push for new EU sanctions against Russia, and will step up counter-intelligence operations against the GRU, the prime minister added.

But justice will be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.

In Moscow, Yuri Ushakov, a senior aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, told reporters that the names released by the British "do not mean anything to me."  

Andrey Kortunoy, director general of the Russian International Affairs Council, suggested that "two photos and two maybe fake names doesn't mean that much."

An exceptionally cool response in a renewed Cold War.

Is Putin trying to take Russia back into the Soviet days? Does he consider them to be the glory days of the empire? They were certainly the glory days of the KGB; perhaps Putin thinks they are one and the same?

Christianity in Russia - Oh, the Troubles of the Last Century, Shall They Return?

What is the state of Christianity in Russia? Well, I've got some good news and some bad news, and I'm not entirely sure which is which

Orthodoxy and Russia inseparable - Putin

TASS Society & Culture 

"Our moral values rest on Christian values, so in this sense it [Orthodoxy - TASS] is a major part of Russia’s soul," president said

    ©  Alexei Druzhinin / press-service of the President of the Russian Federation / TASS

VLADIVOSTOK, /TASS/. Orthodoxy has been playing a major role in Russia’s life throughout the entire history of Russia, so it would not be an exaggeration to say that Orthodoxy and Russia are inseparable, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in the film Patriarch shown on the Rossiya-1 television channel on Sunday to mark the 70th birth anniversary of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia.

"Orthodoxy and Russia are inseparable. And throughout our entire history, Orthodoxy has been playing a major role in the life of our state and our nation," the president said.
"Our moral values rest on Christian values, so in this sense it [Orthodoxy - TASS] is a major part of Russia’s soul," Putin said.

Russia's Newest Law: No Evangelizing

Outside of Church

(UPDATE) Putin signs new restrictions that limit where and how Christians share the gospel.

Kate Shellnutt, CT

    The State Duma building in Moscow  Bernt Rostad / Flickr

Update (July 8): This week, Russian president Vladimir Putin approved a package of anti-terrorism laws that usher in tighter restrictions on missionary activity and evangelism.

Despite prayers and protests from religious leaders and human rights advocates, the Kremlin announced Putin’s approval yesterday. The amendments, including laws against sharing faith in homes, online, or anywhere but recognized church buildings, go into effect July 20.

Though opponents to the new measures hope to eventually appeal in court or elect legislators to amend them, they have begun to prepare their communities for life under the new rules, reported Forum 18 News Service, a Christian outlet reporting on the region.

Protestants and religious minorities small enough to gather in homes fear they will be most affected. Last month, “the local police officer came to a home where a group of Pentecostals meet each Sunday," Konstantin Bendas, deputy bishop of the Pentecostal Union, told Forum 18. "With a contented expression he told them: ‘Now they're adopting the law I'll drive you all out of here.’ I reckon we should now fear such zealous enforcement.”

“There are potentially very wide-sweeping ramifications to this law,” Joel Griffith of the Slavic Gospel Association said in a Mission Network News report. “It just depends on, again, how it is going to be enforced, and that is a very huge question mark.”

-----

Earlier reporting (June 29): Christians in Russia won’t be allowed to email their friends an invitation to church or to evangelize in their own homes if Russia’s newest set of surveillance and anti-terrorism laws are enacted.

The proposed laws, considered the country’s most restrictive measures in post-Soviet history, place broad limitations on missionary work, including preaching, teaching, and engaging in any activity designed to recruit people into a religious group.

To share their faith, citizens must secure a government permit through a registered religious organization, and they cannot evangelize anywhere besides churches and other religious sites. The restrictions even apply to activity in private residences and online.

This week, Russia’s Protestant minority—estimated around 1 percent of the population—prayed, fasted, and sent petitions to President Vladimir Putin, who will have to approve the measures before they become official.

“Most evangelicals—leaders from all seven denominations—have expressed concerns,” Sergey Rakhuba, president of Mission Eurasia and a former Moscow church-planter, told CT. “They’re calling on the global Christian community to pray that Putin can intervene and God can miraculously work in this process.”

Following a wave of Russian nationalist propaganda, the laws passed almost unanimously in the Duma, the upper house, on Friday and in the Federation Council, the lower house, today.

“If this legislation is approved, the religious situation in the country will grow considerably more complicated and many believers will find themselves in exile and subjected to reprisals because of our faith,” wrote Oleg Goncharov, spokesman for the Seventh-day Adventists’ Euro-Asia division, in an open letter.

Proposed by United Russia party lawmaker Irina Yarovaya, the law appears to target religious groups outside the Russian Orthodox church. Because it defines missionary activities as religious practices to spread a faith beyond its members, “if that is interpreted as the Moscow Patriarchate is likely to, it will mean the Orthodox Church can go after ethnic Russians but that no other church will be allowed to,” according to Frank Goble, an expert on religious and ethnic issues in the region.

Russian nationalist identity remains tied up with

the Russian Orthodox church

“The Russian Orthodox church is part of a bulwark of Russian nationalism stirred up by Vladimir Putin,” David Aikman, history professor and foreign affairs expert, told CT. “Everything that undermines that action is a real threat, whether that’s evangelical Protestant missionaries or anything else.”

Sergei Ryakhovsky, head of the Protestant Churches of Russia, and several other evangelical leaders called the law a violation of religious freedom and personal conscience in a letter to Putin posted on the Russian site Portal-Credo. The letter reads, in part:

The obligation on every believer to have a special permit to spread his or her beliefs, as well as hand out religious literature and material outside of places of worship and used structures is not only absurd and offensive, but also creates the basis for mass persecution of believers for violating these provisions.

Soviet history shows us how many people of different faiths have been persecuted for spreading the Word of God. This law brings us back to a shameful past."

Stalin-era religious restrictions—including outlawing religious activity outside of Sunday services in registered churches and banning parents from teaching faith to their kids—remained on the books until the collapse of the Soviet Union, though the government enforced them only selectively.

Selectively, but mercilessly. One of the most intense books I have ever read, and I have read many, was called The Persecutor, by Sergei Kourdakov. It is also sometimes called Forgive Me, Natasha. Kourdakov documents the horrific brutality with which he and his mates punished Christians for meeting in private homes under the authority of the KGB. Here's the intro to his bio on Wikipedia:

Sergei Nikolayevich Kourdakov (Russian: Сергей Николаевич Курдаков; March 1, 1951 – January 1, 1973) was a former KGB agent and naval officer who from his late teen years carried out more than 150 raids in underground Christian communities in regions of the Soviet Union in the 1960s. At the age of twenty, he defected to Canada while a naval officer on a Soviet trawler in the Pacific and converted to Evangelical Christianity. He is known for having written The Persecutor (also known as Forgive Me, Natasha), an autobiography that was written shortly before his death in 1973 and published posthumously. Since its publication, it has been the source of varied criticism.

The book not only describes the fanatical evil that beset Christians, but it also portrays the utter hopelessness and insanity of the KGB and Soviet military. It is a must read if you can find it. Kourdakov lived only a few years in freedom before he was assassinated - the cost of leaving and exposing the KGB.

Some have questioned whether the government could or would monitor religious activity in private Christian homes.

“I don’t think you can overestimate the Russian government’s willingness to exert control,” Aikman told CT. If history is any indication, the proposed regulations reveal a pattern of “creeping totalitarianism” in the country, he said.

So, I have no small amount of admiration for Putin for which I am greatly embarrassed. Not because he is so vilified by western press and governments - I have no respect for their stated opinions whatsoever; but because I stated years ago that I thought Putin was trying to return Russia to the 'glory days' of the USSR. The 'glory' unfortunately, was restricted to only a handful of people in power while the rest of the country suffered miserably. Nevertheless, Putin seems determined to return Russia to those days and this move to restore Soviet-style control of religion just makes me more sure that I am correct.

Having said that, I am not entirely against the edict as it will have the effect of allowing the authorities of clamping down on Islamic recruitment. That cannot be a bad thing. As far as Christians are concerned, a little persecution is rarely a bad thing; it separates the wolves from the sheep in a hurry. America could use a little such persecution to reduce the wolf population in its pulpits. 

The other question I have is whether the Russian Orthodox Church will preach the real Gospel of Jesus Christ, whether they will be allowed to preach it, or will they have to water it down as they did in the communist era. That era was not representative of the thousand years of Orthodox Christianity in the great country of Russia.

The so-called Big Brother laws also introduce widespread surveillance of online activity, including requiring encrypted apps to give the government the power to decode them, and assigning stronger punishments for extremism and terrorism.

The proposal is an “attack on freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, and the right to privacy that gives law enforcement unreasonably broad powers,” the humanitarian group Human Rights Watch told The Guardian.

If passed, the anti-evangelism law carries fines up to US $780 for an individual and $15,500 for an organization. Foreign visitors who violate the law face deportation.

Russia has already moved to contain foreign missionaries. The “foreign agent” law, adopted in 2012, requires groups from abroad to file detailed paperwork and be subject to government audits and raids. Since then, the NGO sector has shrunk by a third, according to government statistics.

“In Moscow, we shared an office with 24 organizations. Not a single foreign expatriate mission is there now,” Rakhuba previously told CT. “They could not re-register. Missionaries could not return to Russia because they could not renew their visas. It is next to impossible to get registration as a foreign organization today.”

While Russia’s evangelicals pray that the proposed regulations are amended or vetoed, they have gone underground before, and they’ll be willing to do it again, Rakhuba said.

“They say, ‘If it will come to it, it’s not going to stop us from worshiping and sharing our faith,’” he wrote. “The Great Commission isn’t just for a time of freedom.”

7000 Morality Police To Create Fear and Distrust in Iran

Iranians vent anger at new police morality unit

From BBC Middle East

Morality police, Critics say the extra officers are a waste of police resources. Getty Images


Outraged Iranians have taken to social media to condemn the decision to deploy 7,000 undercover police officers in Tehran to monitor the observance of the Islamic dress code.

Tehran's police chief announced on Monday that the role of the new unit is to:

Report women for the improper wearing of the hijab (and to ensure a woman's veil covers her in public as required)
Report anyone who harasses women
Report anyone who plays loud music in their cars and violates traffic rules

The morality police have been around for decades but the size of the new unit has taken many by surprise. The unit also includes female officers.

"Even KGB did not have 7,000 spies across the world" tweeted @big_loti (6,206 followers).

I would be surprised if there weren't that many KGB spies in Moscow alone.

The 7,000 officers will look out for violations of the above offences and text details of the incidents to the morality police to follow up. The subsequent warning could be verbal - or lead to arrests and fines.

'Waste of resources'

Social media users have scoffed at this "tragic waste of human resources" and what they consider to be ill-placed priorities.

Many posts mention that enforcement resources should be spent on more pressing issues like fighting persistent corruption and bribery.

Some undercover officers are women - Getty Images

Some women fear that it could even backfire and lead to further pestering from strangers. In the past, vigilantes linked to the paramilitary forces of Basij, have sometimes carried out street patrols to enforce hijab and prevent "un-Islamic" behaviour.

Twitter user @mahbu000be (7,268 followers) said: This "means that anyone will be able to claim to be member of the morality police from tomorrow to start disturbing women and children" on the streets.

It's "meant to frighten people" said Facebook user "Mitra Mirzaee". They want to create the feeling that people "are constantly being watched" and they also want to "increase distrust among people" and to occupy them with "some worthless things in order to prevent them from focusing on the major existing problems".

Why fear women so much I wonder, said Facebook user "Judith Sugden-Smith". The 7,000 "could be employed in constructive, productive jobs beneficial to society."

Let's see, 7000 people at about $20 per day - that's $140,000 per day. That's about $50 million dollars per year - to make sure women are as invisible as they can be. Islamism, like sin, is progressive!

Islamism, like sin, is progressive!

"We wish they hired 700 people (10% of the 7,000) to fight against the widespread problems of corruption, bribery and smuggling said a post on the popular Facebook page, "My Stealthy Freedom". The page advocates an end to compulsory hijab.

"Solve economic problems. People won't have time for wandering around when they have jobs. No-one will steal or will be selling themselves into prostitution when they are not starving," Facebook user "Navid Salimi" suggested.

Earlier in February, an anonymous team of Iranian app developers came up with a solution to help young fashion conscious Iranians avoid the morality police with a phone app called "Gershad".

The app allows users to "report" the location where morality police are patrolling and warn unwary passers-by.

The creators said they were fed up with being "humiliated" for what they wear. The latest announcement on the hijab has fuelled further irritation.

"I cannot believe how far they can go to make people miserable," tweeted user @SadafHafezy.

"According to the mind-set of the authorities...not wearing the hijab is a worse offence than embezzlement".

One message of support for the new unit came from user "Kiyan Aylia". The user called on the morality police to "arrest these ladies without hijab and also their husbands because they are supporting them". Then "clean my Iran of these [people] by sending them in exile to the West. Let them enjoy their life there," Kiyan Aylia said.

'Everyone is Being Framed', Journalist Deported from Turkey Tells of Govt Media Takeover

There are two reasons why autocratic states take over their media: 

1. They are doing, or planning something either illegal or immoral, ie invading Crimea

2. They are completely paranoid. The KGB and its forerunner kept Stalin terrified that someone was always trying to overthrow him. They knew it wasn't true but that's empire building at its finest.

But it doesn't have to be an either / or situation. It could well be that Erdogan is completely paranoid; and it is certain that he is assisting ISIS and attempting to destroy the Kurds.

Riot police use tear gas to disperse protesting employees and supporters of Zaman newspaper at the courtyard of the newspaper's office in Istanbul, Turkey March 5, 2016. © Osman Orsal / Reuters

The latest government takeover of the Zaman media outlet in Istanbul is "not a surprise at all," a journalist who had been working in the country told RT, adding that "the press has never been free in Turkey."

"Everybody who opposes them [the government], every journalist who is against the government is being framed. I was framed as a terrorist supporter and Zaman is linked to the Gulen movement – which is a movement of a religious Turkish leader [Sunni cleric Fethullah Gulen] who is based in the US, and they say he is trying to stage a coup against the government. So now Zaman journalists and people who read Zaman are being framed as coup supporters, that's how the government is doing it," Frederike Geerdink, Dutch freelance journalist who was deported from Turkey last year, told RT.

On Friday, the Istanbul-based Turkish-language Zaman newspaper, which has been sharply critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was ordered into administration by a court decision. Following the order, which the outlet journalists proclaimed an "unlawful takeover," the paper's editor-in-chief Abdulhamit Bilici was fired by trustees, while police put barbed wire around the headquarters.

"All content management systems at Zaman" have also been blocked by the new administration, Zaman's sister publication in English, Today's Zaman, said, with its journalists covering the situation via social media and posting updates on Twitter.

"All internet connection is cut off at the seized Zaman building by police raid," they posted, adding that after the takeover of the headquarters in Istanbul, Ankara office has also "lost access to company internal servers."

Government affiliates have also taken under control and blocked access to the outlet's Cihan news agency, Today's Zaman reported, adding that it is "the only news agency that was monitoring elections besides state-run Anadolu."

"It's not a surprise at all. Several of the government newspapers have in the last couple of weeks hinted at this [takeover] already, and other media who are linked to the Gulen movement have come under the same procedure with trustees," Frederike Geerdink, who has herself been prosecuted in Turkey "for making propaganda for a terrorist organization," said.

The journalist told RT that she has been in contact with one of Zaman's employees, who told her weeks ago that they had been "having a difficult time" because of government pressure. Zaman was losing advertisers and readers, "because if you work for the state you cannot be seen with Zaman under your arm, as it can lead to losing your job," the Dutch journalist was told by her Turkish colleague.

"Zaman was being attacked for months," she said, but added that the current situation with the media in the country "is not something new."

Two years ago, one of Today's Zaman journalists, Azerbaijan national Mahir Zeynalov, was deported from Turkey after having worked at the Turkish newspaper for years. The reporter was facing prosecution related to a tweet, his employers said, adding that a complaint against Zeynalov was filed by then PM Erdogan, accusing the journalist of "defamation and inciting public to hatred."

"People now think that Erdogan invented the lack of press freedom in Turkey - which is totally not true. He takes it to extreme heights – that's definitely true, but the press has never been free in Turkey," Geerdink told RT. "For example, 20 years ago nobody could go to the southeast to report on the realities there. At the time it was the army that was censoring the press, and now Erdogan is using the same mechanisms to silence opponents," she said.

Not only government-owned media outlets are being biased in Turkey, the Dutch journalist said. Some are under indirect, economic pressure.

"Most of the big papers and big channels, also the ones we call 'mainstream' which are not necessarily total mouthpieces of the government, have economic ties to the government, because they are part of big companies, and have to report in line with general government policy. [Otherwise] these companies lose contracts in the telecom market," Geerdink said, adding that CNN Turk – which hasn't been covering the Zaman protests, is one example.

"CNN Turk cancelled two rather popular talk shows of people who are not really in line with the government - and that is another problem in Turkey," she said.

Russia Unable to Accept Criticism

The films sees characters played by Tom Hardy and Gary Oldman
 team up to try and stop a serial killer

Russia has blocked the release of the new film Child 44 because authorities say it "distorts" historical facts.

The culture ministry says that the movie, which was due to be released on Friday, was withdrawn after a preview screening raised concerns. Issues included a "peculiar interpretation of events before, during and after the Great Patriotic War as well as images and characters of Soviet citizens living in that historical period", the ministry statement says, using the Russian term for the conflict with Nazi Germany. It adds that showing "this type of film" in the lead-up to the 70th anniversary of victory in World War Two is "unacceptable".

The film stars British actor Tom Hardy as a disgraced Soviet secret police agent who's trying to track down a serial child killer in Stalin-era Russia. Hardy's character is pitted against a "system-wide cover-up" and those who deny crimes can exist in a utopian state, according to the film's own website. But the film's characterisation of Soviet officers has displeased Russian officials. Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky has complained that it depicts them as "physically and morally base sub-humans" and makes the country seem like Mordor - the fictional and terrifying land in Lord of the Rings, according to the state news agency RIA Novosti.

One Russian film producer says the decision not to release Child 44 is bad for the country's film industry. "Before, films where Soviet and Russian heroes were presented not in the best way have been released in Russia, but nothing similar happened," Alexander Rodnyansky tells the RBK business news website. "Now everything to do with history should clearly fit into a kind of framework set by the culture ministry."

What is behind this sudden intolerance of criticism? Actually it is not sudden at all as opposition leaders, reporters, lawyers, and ex-KGB agents who have criticized Russia, or to be specific, Putin, have been murdered in recent years.

Are they Soviet KGB officers who are portrayed so harshly? If so, is that likely to offend President Putin who was a KGB agent? So is it Russia that is unable to accept criticism, or is it just Putin?

In my experience, people who are unable to accept criticism graciously, usually suffer from pride issues. It may be real or false pride. False pride often occurs in someone lacking self-confidence, who wants to hide that fact. While it seems absurd to accuse Mr Putin of a lack of confidence, I can't help but wonder if his confidence has been shaken by some obscure event.

Who knows? But it's a disturbing trend that seems inline with a retreat back into communism - a place where, I believe, Mr Putin would be more comfortable.

Putin’s View of Power was Formed Watching East Germany Collapse

25 years ago Russia’s president was a KGB officer in the chaos of Dresden. This explains the hardliner he is today

An East German waves a West German flag in front of a group of East German
soldiers in Dresden in 1989. Photograph: Owen Franken/CORBIS

Mary Elise Sarotte - The Guardian

Twenty-five years ago this week tumultuous scenes were unfolding in the East German city of Dresden: inside the central station, tens of thousands of people clashed violently with police, army and Stasi forces. And the chances are high that a 36-year-old KGB officer named Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin would have followed the chaos with his own eyes.

The story of what happened in Dresden on 4 October was soon overshadowed by the peaceful fall of the Berlin Wall a month later. Yet understanding what Putin the KGB officer may have seen that day could hold the key to understanding how the Russian president sees the crisis in eastern Europe today. For someone who believed deeply in the cold war order, it was most likely an excruciating experience. It is clear that he returned home soon afterwards in disgust, full of bitterness that lingers to this day, with dramatic consequences. Thanks to surviving evidence from police, Stasi, and party files, as well as interviews, it is possible to trace Dresden’s descent into chaos over the course of 1989.

The Berlin Wall
By late summer in 1989 it was apparent that East Germany’s regime of hardliners, headed by Erich Honecker, was never going to follow the example of the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, and reform. As far as Honecker was concerned, the iron curtain should stay closed. But over the course of that summer the Hungarians had eased their border controls, and a massive wave of East Germans had rushed southwards to the border between Hungary and Austria to try to escape to the west: by mid-August, more than 200,000 East Germans were making their way through Hungary.

Berlin Wall, Brandenburg Gate

When Honecker forbade East Germans from travelling to Hungary, agitated refugees flooded the grounds of the West German embassies in Warsaw and Prague. About 5,000 crowded on to embassy grounds, huddling in the mud as cold, damp autumn weather arrived.

The situation rapidly became so desperate that East and West Germany brokered a deal: the refugees could go west, but on Honecker’s insistence they could do so only on sealed trains (a means of transport with tragic historical significance in Germany) that passed through East Germany first.

After recording their names, Honecker would then prove that he was boss by “expelling” them to West Germany – all the while they stayed on the same trains. On the night of 30 September about 5,500 East Germans made it to West Germany via this bizarre route. Honecker then closed the East German borders entirely, thus putting an end to the refugee problem once and for all – or so he thought.

Berlin Wall from the west. If the girl had done that on the
other side of the wall, she would have been shot and killed

Inside East Germany, just south of Dresden, more would-be refugees were stuck on the southern borders of their unloved state. Instead of going home, they started protesting in large numbers. And more East Germans managed to reach the Prague embassy before the borders were fully sealed. As a result Honecker had to allow more trains from what was then Czechoslovakia to West Germany, scheduled to roll through the centre of Dresden on 4 October.

With the borders now closed, this second set of overflowing trains became known as the “last trains to freedom”, and everyone wanted a ticket: 2,500 people flooded Dresden’s main railway station, blocking the tracks in the hope of getting on board; another 20,000 packed the area outside. For hours, the blockage forced the trains to wait south of the city centre. Panicked, the East German leaders contacted their Czech comrades, asking them to take the trains back, but Prague refused.

So the Dresden police and Stasi decided to fight through the night to clear the station. More than 400 East German soldiers, armed with machine guns, were sent to the city as well. Stasi files record that 45 members of the East German security forces were injured and at least one police car was turned over and set on fire. Protesters later recounted multiple incidents of police brutality, both on the streets and at hastily organised detention centres. It took until the early hours of 5 October to get at least three of the trains through. The rest had to be re-routed through other cities.

Dresden helped to set in motion a chain of events that would lead to the fall of the wall. One of Gorbachev’s senior aides, Anatoly Chernyaev, lamented the spread of “terrible scenes” of violence, damaging to the East German and Soviet regimes alike. The images worsened the split between Gorbachev and East Berlin, rendering them less capable of coordinated action in the face of protests.

Government and Wall toppled
Opposition leaders, for their part, made heroic efforts to guarantee that future protests would be nonviolent. They succeeded: when, on 9 October, dissidents squared off against state security forces in Leipzig, the sheer numbers cowed the state’s security apparatus without violence. The resistance movement then rolled northward over the entire country, eventually toppling the East German regime and the Wall.

Vladimir Putin

It is impossible to say with any certainty where Putin was during these events. He made sure he covered the tracks of his German posting by burning documents, partly to prevent them from falling into the hands of protesters.

But it is clear that he spent much of the late 1980s in East Germany as a member of the Soviet secret police, and there is no reason to think he was absent that October. Putin himself has recalled to interviewers in vague terms how he watched events unfold: it is a reasonable assumption that he saw crowds seize control in Dresden first hand.

Greatest tragedy
This event was a catastrophe from the point of view of Soviet loyalists, and few were more loyal than Putin. He would later call the collapse of the Soviet Union and its authority in eastern Europe the greatest tragedy of the 20th century. Since he witnessed it with his own eyes, he has presumably never forgotten the experience.

Operational Code
The Dresden disaster must have had an enormous impact on him – and understanding that may help us to understand his actions today. Political scientists such as Alexander George have long theorised that world leaders function according to an internal “operational code” acquired during younger, formative years, which they then rely on to guide them years later when in power.

The events of 4-5 October 1989 may very well have helped to shape Putin’s operational code. His swift and aggressive responses both to the popular uprising in Kiev earlier this year and to the earlier demonstrations in Moscow suggest that they did. He saw the crowds seize control – and is not, to put it mildly, comfortable with that precedent.

Hardline
This analysis does not bode well for the future of the Ukraine crisis. The conflict in Ukraine, and the resulting wounds to relations between the west and Moscow, will fester as long as Putin remains in power, for operational codes rarely change once set. Having witnessed protesters first get the better of local authorities and then distant rulers, he will do whatever he deems necessary to prevent the same scenario from repeating itself.