European Politics > Russophobia - Election Interference; Novichok; Novichok; Polonium-210

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Russia claims hostile EU report listing ‘factually wrong’ grievances

& demanding more sanctions is attempt at election meddling

This report comes from RT (Russia Today) and may have some inherent bias.

19 Sep, 2021 13:05

© Getty Images / Oleksii Liskonih; (inset) Vladimir Chizhov © Sputnik / Vladimir Astapkovich

A fresh report on EU-Russia relations released by the European Parliament is a futile attempt to influence this weekend's parliamentary elections in the continent's largest country, Moscow’s top envoy to Brussels has alleged.

On Thursday, the bloc's lawmakers approved a document outlining the EU’s relationship with Russia. It was prepared by former Lithuanian PM Andrius Kubilius and passed by a 494 to 103 vote, with 72 MEPs abstaining. It's important to note that setting foreign policy is a function of member states and not parliamentarians in the Belgian capital. 

Russia's Permanent Representative to the EU Vladimir Chizhov blasted the report on Sunday, calling it biased, factually wrong and, in his view, aimed at swaying votes in the ongoing parliamentary elections in Russia. If that was the intention, nothing would come out of it, the diplomat predicted, saying that Russian people “are conscious and politically educated enough not to fall for such a move.”

“This entire resolution has this common thread that the government, the president, the parliament are all bad. And there are good democracy-thirsty Russian people, whom the MEPs want to direct toward the light,” he said.

I am certain that many in our country will find this hubris insulting to their intelligence and capacity for independent thinking.

Chizhov believes the adoption of the non-binding resolution was timed to coincide with legislative elections, which Russia is holding this weekend.

The EU report contains a laundry list of grievances it has toward the Russian government, some of which are simply factually untrue, according to the Russian envoy. For example, it states that “the collapse of arms control with Russia (e.g. withdrawals from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the Treaty on Open Skies) and the lack of progress on nuclear disarmament…is of great concern for the security of European citizens.”

Russia indeed abandoned the INF Treaty and the Open Skies treaty, but in both cases the US was the party that initiated the situation. Russia and the US significantly reduced their respective nuclear arsenals under the bilateral New START treaty.

However, that agreement was almost scrapped by former American leader Donald Trump and renewed at the last moment by his successor, Joe Biden. The EU report omits those facts, implying that the collapse was Russia’s fault and part of a wider Russian military buildup threatening other European nations, Chizhov highlights.

This is NATO propaganda as they attempt to convince the west that they still have a purpose. 

The MEPs offered a long list of recommendations to the EU and member states on how they should treat Russia, proposing sanctions, the reduction of trade and other measures. Among them was a proposal “not to recognize the Parliament of Russia” after it is sworn in and suspend Moscow from international organizations with parliamentary assemblies, suggesting that the ballot could be “recognized as fraudulent” by the EU. The bloc should also pressure on the country to change its election procedures, the document directed.

The Russian ambassador said such recommendations were clearly directed at meddling in Russia’s domestic affairs. Ironically, the document accused Moscow of conducting hostile political interference in other countries.

For example, RT, together with the Sputnik broadcaster, were accused of promoting the concept of the ‘Russian World’ “in the native languages of the EU Member States” and trying to “rehabilitate Russia’s image in the eyes of the EU population, particularly via the promotion of the Sputnik V vaccine” against Covid-19.

Does this mean the RT and Sputnik should be condemned for not falling in line with the approved narrative of NATO?

Chizhov said he saw a silver lining in the fact that 175 lawmakers refused to support the resolution, indicating that “some MEPs still have reserves of common sense.”

British cops charge third Russian national over dramatic alleged

2018 Salisbury poisoning of spy Skripal & point finger at GRU

21 Sep, 2021 11:54

FILE PHOTO. House of former spy Sergei Skripal, in Salisbury, Britain January 9, 2019.

© Reuters / Peter Nicholls

The British police have named a third person they believe had a part to play in the 2018 poisoning of former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal. London has accused Moscow of being behind an “attempted murder.”

The man, who traveled to the UK on a passport with the name Sergey Fedotov, was charged on Tuesday with conspiracy to murder, attempted murder, causing grievous bodily harm, and the use and possession of a chemical weapon. According to Scotland Yard, the man’s real name is Denis Sergeev.

These are the same accusations leveled at the two previously accused Russian nationals, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov. Britain believes their real names to be Alexander Mishkin and Anatoliy Chepiga.

According to London, the three men work for the Russian GRU, the country’s foreign military intelligence agency. In March 2018, they were alleged to have come to the UK to smear a military-grade nerve agent on the handle of former GRU officer Skripal’s front door. The poison – later named by London as ‘Novichok’ – caused Skripal and his daughter to fall ill, also affecting police officer Nick Bailey. Another woman, Dawn Sturgess, allegedly died after spraying it on herself, believing it to be a perfume.

While the British authorities initially blamed just two men, the police now say they have evidence that the three were working as a team and met multiple times over their short trip to the UK.

“All three of them have all previously worked with each other on behalf of the Russian state as part of ops carried on outside Russia,” said Dean Haydon, the Metropolitan police’s deputy assistant commissioner. “All three of them are dangerous individuals.”

The new development is also the first time that the police have explicitly blamed the GRU, three years after former British Prime Minister Theresa May pointed the finger at the organization.

Moscow has consistently denied its involvement in the alleged poisoning, with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov insisting that the authorities had nothing to do with it. President Vladimir Putin has also claimed that the suspects fingered by London are simply innocent civilians.

Skripal was arrested in Russia in 2004 and was convicted of passing secrets to MI6, the British foreign intelligence service. The double-agent later confessed and cooperated, before being pardoned and sent to the UK as part of a spy swap for ten Russians convicted as part of the so-called illegals program, including the infamous Anna Chapman.

In 2018, Putin dubbed Skripal a “traitor to his country,” accusing some media outlets of talking about him as if he was a human rights defender.

“He is just scum,” the president said.

UK says it will take all possible steps to extradite Skripal suspects,

as Moscow claims London shifting blame for 'Novichok' case

21 Sep, 2021 15:15

A handout picture taken on Wilton Road in Salisbury, west of London on March 4, 2018, and released by the British Metropolitan Police Service in London on September 5, 2018, shows Alexander Petrov (R) and Ruslan Boshirov. © AFP / Metropolitan Police Service

Speaking in the House of Commons on Tuesday, after prosecutors announced they had charged a third suspect over the 2018 incident, Home Secretary Priti Patel said that the government will be "relentless" in pursuing the trio. "Should any of these individuals ever travel outside Russia we will work with our international partners and take every possible step to detain them and extradite them to face justice," she said.

Earlier that day, police said they wanted to bring a case against a man who travelled to the UK under the name Sergey Fedotov for conspiracy to murder, attempted murder, causing grievous bodily harm, and the use and possession of a chemical weapon. Fedotov had been added to the wanted list in addition to two other Russian nationals, known as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, who investigators claim are military intelligence agents who were sent to kill Skripal.

In March 2018, the city of Salisbury, around 80 miles southeast of London, went into lockdown after reports that a deadly Soviet-era nerve agent, Novichok, had been smeared on the handle of Skripal's front door. A former member of Russian military intelligence, he served as a double agent for the UK's intelligence services during the 1990s and 2000s, before moving to Britain in 2010 under a spy swap deal. He and his daughter, Yulia, were found on a park bench having been taken ill, and were admitted to hospital.

Police officer Nick Bailey, who was sent to investigate the Skripals' house, was also hospitalized. Another woman, Dawn Sturgess, later died after reportedly finding a perfume bottle containing the supposed nerve agent and spraying it on herself.

Russia has consistently rejected allegations that there was a state-sponsored effort to kill the Skripals. Responding to the news later on Tuesday, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that "it has been a long time since we dealt with this subject, and I'm not sure why it is resurfacing now," suggesting the allegations are part of a wider geopolitical play.

"For more than two years now, the British authorities have been using the Salisbury incident to deliberately complicate our bilateral relations," she said. "We strongly condemn all attempts by London to blame Moscow for what happened in Salisbury and insist on a professional, objective and impartial investigation of the incident."

"Despite numerous requests from the Russian side and appeals for a responsible joint investigation, London continues to refuse proper discussions or a shared inquiry into this incident, as a result of which, I recall, Russian citizens have suffered," Zakharova added.

The UK's foreign policy chiefs summoned the Minister-Counselor of the Russian Embassy to a meeting on Tuesday in order to discuss the charges against the three Russian men. In comments after the meeting, Moscow's envoys said that it was entirely unfounded to assess that a Russian citizen was involved in the case because of when they entered the UK.

Kremlin says ECHR's claim Russia behind Litvinenko poisoning

'unfounded,' arguing court has no evidence of Moscow's involvement

21 Sep, 2021 10:41 

The building of the European Court of Human Rights. © Reuters / VINCENT KESSLER;

(inset) press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov. © RIA / Sergey Guneev

Speaking to journalists after the court gave its verdict on Tuesday, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said that justices had no substantive evidence to back up the allegations that the Russian state was involved in Litvinenko’s death.

“It is unlikely that the ECHR has the powers or technological capabilities to have information on this matter,” he said. “There are still no results from this investigation,” Peskov added, “therefore it is at least unfounded to make such statements.” 

The judgement, passed down by justices earlier on Tuesday, argued that “Russia was responsible for the assassination of Litvinenko in the UK.”

The former security agent died in a London hospital in 2006 after what British investigators concluded was poisoning with a rare radioactive isotope, Polonium-210. They claim that the substance was slipped into his drink during a meeting at a nearby hotel, and insist that the Russian state had ordered the killing.

Litvinenko defected to the UK in 2000, having previously worked as a high-ranking officer in Russia’s FSB, running agents in war-torn Chechnya during its bloody conflict in the early 1990s. He was later recruited by Britain’s MI6 spy agency, officials said, to provide “useful information about senior Kremlin figures and their links with Russian organized crime.” A Moscow court found him guilty of corruption in absentia and sentenced him to three-and-a-half years in jail.

In the ruling, the ECHR alleges that two Russian citizens, Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun, were behind his death, and acting on orders from above. “The Court found in particular that there was a strong prima facie case that, in poisoning Mr Litvinenko, Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun had been acting as agents of the Russian state,” the statement from the court reads.

Russia has consistently denied any involvement, and Lugovoy told reporters in Moscow the year after the incident that “Britain is making me a scapegoat.”

Russophobia - Skripal Poisoning Handling Leaves Room for Manipulation

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UK Defense ministry document reveals Skripals blood samples

could have been manipulated

By Dilyana Gaytandzhieva - Dilyana.BG

September 3, 20210

Incredible transformation: Yulia Skripal (left) following the alleged poisoning with the deadliest known nerve agent Novichok. Yulia and her father Sergei Skripal (right) before the alleged nerve agent poisoning.

New evidence has emerged of gross violations during the UK investigation into the alleged poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury on 4th March 2018. The new revelations put into question the main evidence that the Skripals were poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok.

The blood samples taken from the Skripals could have been tampered with so that they test positive for Novichok, newly disclosed information obtained from the UK Ministry of Defense reveals. Furthermore, documents show that Russia was not the only country in the world that could be linked to the nerve agent Novichok.

The US had covered up its own Novichok program masked as research on fourth generation nerve agents (FGAs) and muzzled the Organisation for the prohibition of chemical weapons (OPCW) a decade before the Skripals attack.

Breach of chain of custody

Newly disclosed information obtained from the UK Ministry of Defense (MOD) under the Freedom of Information Act questions the integrity of the main evidence that the Skripals were poisoned with Novichok, namely their blood samples. The ministry is in charge of the British military laboratory DSTL Porton Down which analyzed the Skripals blood samples and reportedly identified Novichok.

“Our searches have failed to locate any information that provides the exact time that the samples were collected”, the ministry states. The information held by MOD therefore indicates that the samples were collected at some point between 16:15 on 4 March 2018 and 18:45 on 5 March 2018 (the approximate time according to MOD when the samples arrived at DSTL Porton Down). Even the time of arrival at Porton Down is indicated as “approximate”.

The lack of this information is gross violation and breach of the chain of custody. The UK NHS protocol requires that a request form accompany all specimens sent to the laboratory and clearly state the exact (not approximate) date and time of collection. This newly disclosed information questions the whole Skripals Novichok poisoning story. The fact that the chain of custody of these blood samples was broken directly suggests that they could have been manipulated and tampered with.

There is so much more on this story, some of it a little technical. There is also some reference to the Navalny poisoning. Read it at DILYANA.BG. 

Two Years Later: The Skripal Case Is Weirder Than Ever

by Matthew Ehret
The Duran

While navigating through today’s propaganda-heavy world of misinformation, spin and outright creative writing which appears to have replaced conventional journalism, it is most important that two qualities are active in the mind of any truth-seeker. The first quality is the adherence to a strong top down perspective, both historic and global. This is vital in order to guide us as a sort of compass or North Star used by sailors navigating across the ocean. The second quality is a strong power of logic, memory and discernment of wheat vs. chaff to process the mountains of data that slaps us in the face from all directions like sand in a desert storm.

As the second anniversary of the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal has arrived, it is a useful time to take these qualities and revisit this bizarre moment of modern history which took place on a park bench in Salisbury UK and which led to one of the greatest frauds of the modern era derailing all attempts to repair relations between Russia and the west.

To do this, I decided to plunge myself into a new book called Skripal in Prison written by Moscow-based journalist John Helmer and published in February 2020.

This incredible little book, which features 26 chapters written between March 2018 to February 2020 originally published on the author’s site Dances with Bears, unveils an arsenal of intellectual bullets which Helmer skillfully uses to shoot holes into every inconsistency, contradiction and outright lie holding up the structure of the narrative that “there is no alternative conclusion other than that the Russian State was culpable for the attempted murder of Mr. Skripal and his daughter”.  This line was asserted without a shred of actual evidence by Theresa May in the House of Commons on March 16, 2018 and in the months that followed, western nations were pressured to expel Russian diplomats (23 in Britain, 60 in the US, 33 across the EU), close down consulates (one Russian consulate in San Francisco and one American consulate in St Petersburg) and impose waves of sanctions against Russia.

Four months after the Skripals (and one unfortunate detective named Sgt. Nick Bailey) were released from British hospital care, two more figures were stricken with Novichok poisoning and taken to hospital on June 30 with one of them (Dawn Sturgess) dying 9 days later. This too was blamed immediately on Russia.

Helmer’s research systematically annihilates the official narratives with the craftsmanship of a legal attorney, taking the reader through several vital questions which shape the book’s composition as a whole, and which I shall lay out for you here:

Why have Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia fallen off the face of the Earth since their release from Salisbury hospital? It is known that one controlled video was recorded featuring Yulia speaking, and several short calls to family were made by Yulia and her father after their poisoning… but nothing more. Beyond the fact that it appears the Skripals were kept on an American military base in Gloucestershire for an indeterminate amount of time, Helmer points out “at the point in their recuperation when the two of them were beginning to be explicit in their public remarks about what had happened, their communications were cut off. Nothing more is known to this present day.”

Despite the fact that the UK Prime Minister asserted that a European Arrest Warrant was issued for the two Russians that were alleged to have carried out Putin’s malevolent will onto the poor Skripals- why were no such warrants ever registered in Interpol? Is it because such warrants actually require evidence?

Why did British Intelligence sanction the tearing down of big sections of Skripal’s home at 47 Christie Miller Road in Salisbury due to the apparent “dangers of deadly contaminants”, while only the door handle was tainted with Novichok? If the reasoning was due to health safety, then why were similar actions not taken to the Bourne Hill police station which Sgt. Bradley contaminated or the restaurant and pub which Sergei Skripal went to before his trip to the park … or the contaminated London hotel where the two Russian agents apparently stayed?

Since Novichok is an extremely fast acting substance, generally attacking the nervous system in minutes, how is it possible that the time separating the Skripals’ moment of contamination to the moment of losing consciousness on a park bench was over three hours?! How is this possible? Similarly how was it possible that Sgt. Bailey’s point of contamination at Skripal’s home occurred a full 12 hours before he felt the need to go to the hospital?

What the hell was up with the strange case of the two unfortunate victims of the July 2018 Novichok poisoning in Amesbury (9 miles from Salisbury)? Were Dawn Sturgess and her partner Charlie Rowley simply collateral damage in an MI6 effort to plug a missing hole in the narrative caused by a lack of any evidence of a device used to apply the nerve agent to the door handle in the first place? Why does Rowley (a known heroin addict) have no recollection where he found the perfume bottle filled with Novichok which he gifted to Sturgess on June 26? Why was the perfume bottle only found by authorities on Rowley’s kitchen counter two days after Sturgess died on July 9th even though a search for Novichok had been carried out at his apartment beginning with the couple’s admission into Salisbury hospital on June 30?

What was the role of the Ministry of Defense’s Porton Down chemical laboratories in this bizarre story? The lab itself was located just a few miles from the crime scene, and the first responder on the scene was an off-duty Colonel named Alison McCourt who happened to be shopping nearby and rushed to the scene. Helmer describes how Col. McCourt is head of nursing for the British Army and Senior Health Advisor which connects her closely to the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down which also happened to have held a major chemical warfare exercise named Toxic Dagger in the area just two weeks earlier. Are these things nothing but coincidences?

Porton Down labs which tested the Skripal blood samples and Novichok at the Skripal residence is part of the Ministry of Defense and to this day, no public admission of those samples’ existence at the labs has occurred. Requests by Helmer and others to receive confirmation of from the labs according to Freedom of Information laws have been denied outright on the grounds of “the public interest”. Why? Could it be because blood tests were never actually carried out? Helmer’s book probes this question deeply and the lack of evidence will shock you.

How about the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)? Since the OPCW ran parallel tests of the apparent blood samples of the Skripals as well as the later July victims Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley to get “matches” with the novichok traces in a perfume bottle and Skripal door handle, why has evidence of these samples not been made available? Also why was a British intelligence officer the only figure who oversaw the samples taken to the OPCW for verification? In fact, Helmer points out that the one Swiss contract laboratory (Spiez) associated with the OPCW has contradicted all British claims that any “match” exists between the Skripal samples and Novichok A-234 poisoning.

Finally, Helmer asks: Why were all OPCW Executive Council votes in regards to matters surrounding the Skripal case, taken in secret, and thus in conflict with its own charter and why was Russia denied the right to share in the investigation of the Novichok attack as guaranteed in Articles XIII and IX of the OPCW Chemical Weapons convention? Could that have something to do with the role of former OPCW Director General Ahmet Üzümcü, a Turkish NATO-phile, who Helmer notes “has also been a member of the NATO staff in charge of expanding NATO military operations to the Russian frontier, as well as NATO operations in Ukraine and Syria.” In 2019, Üzümcü was inducted into the Order of St Michael and St George by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the Empire.

Helmer goes onto make the point that the overarching dynamic shaping the events of the Skripal/Novichok affair are guided by the collapsing western empire which has been working tirelessly to surround Russia with a ballistic missile shield while sabotaging all efforts by genuine patriots in the west from establishing positive alliances with Russia.

Taking the opportunity of the second anniversary of the Skripal affair to read this book is not only a valuable exercise in logic but also key into the desperate and increasingly fear-driven mind of the London-centered deep state which is quickly losing its grip both on reality and the very influence it had spent generations putting in place.

Matthew Ehret is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Patriot Review , a BRI Expert on Tactical talk, and has authored 3 volumes of ‘Untold History of Canada’ book series. In 2019 he co-founded the Montreal-based Rising Tide Foundation and can be reached at matt.ehret@tutamail.com

The World: What is Really Happening - Craig Murray

Craig Murray
See bio at bottom

If you want to understand what is really happening in the world today, a mid-ranking official named Ian Henderson is vastly more important to you than Theresa May. You will not, however, find anything about Henderson in the vast majority of corporate and state media outlets.

You may recall that, one month after the Skripal incident, there was allegedly a “chemical weapons attack” in the jihadist enclave of Douma, which led to air strikes against the Syrian government in support of the jihadist forces by US, British and French bombers and missiles. At the time, I argued that the Douma jihadist enclave was on the brink of falling (as indeed it proved) and there was no military advantage – and a massive international downside – for the Syrian Army in using chemical weapons. Such evidence for the attack that existed came from the jihadist allied and NATO funded White Helmets and related sources; and the veteran and extremely respected journalist Robert Fisk, first westerner to arrive on the scene, reported that no chemical attack had taken place.

UK Reporter Astounded By What He Found in Douma

The “Douma chemical weapon attack” was linked to the “Skripal chemical weapon attack” by the western media as evidence of Russian evil. Robert Fisk was subjected to massive media abuse and I was demonised by countless mainstream media journalists on social media.

In both the Skripal and the Douma case, it fell to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to provide the technical analysis. The OPCW is a multilateral body established by treaty, and has 193 member states. The only major chemical weapons owning powers which are not members and refuse the inspections regime are the pariah rogue states Israel and North Korea.

An OPCW fact finding mission visited Douma on April 21 and 25 2018 and was able to visit the sites, collect samples and interview witnesses. No weaponised chemicals were detected but traces of chlorine were found. Chlorine is not an uncommon chemical, so molecular traces of chlorine at a bombing site are not improbable. The interim report of the OPCW following the Fact Finding Mission was markedly sober and non-committal:

The results show that no organophosphorous nerve agents or their degradation products were detected in the environmental samples or in the plasma samples taken from alleged casualties. Along with explosive residues, various chlorinated organic chemicals were found in samples from two sites, for which there is full chain of custody.

The fact finding mission then returned to OPCW HQ, at which time the heavily politicised process took over within the secretariat and influenced by national delegations. 9 months later the final report was expressed in language of greater certainty, yet backed by no better objective evidence:

Regarding the alleged use of toxic chemicals as a weapon on 7 April 2018 in Douma, the Syrian Arab Republic, the evaluation and analysis of all the information gathered by the FFM—witnesses’ testimonies, environmental and biomedical samples analysis results, toxicological and ballistic analyses from experts, additional digital information from witnesses—provide reasonable grounds that the use of a toxic chemical as a weapon took place. This toxic chemical contained reactive chlorine. The toxic chemical was likely molecular chlorine.

However the report noted it was unable to determine who had used the chlorine as a weapon. Attempts to spin this as a consequence of OPCW’s remit are nonsense – the OPCW exists precisely to police chemical weapons violations, and has never operated on the basis of violator anonymity.

Needless to say, NATO funded propaganda site Bellingcat had been from the start in the lead in proclaiming to the world the “evidence” that this was a chemical weapons attack by the Assad government, dropping simple chlorine cylinders as bombs. The original longer video footage of one of the videos on the Bellingcat site gives a fuller idea of the remarkable lack of damage to one gas cylinder which had smashed through the reinforced concrete roof and landed gently on the bed.

[I am sorry that I do not know how to extract that longer video from its tweet. You need to click on the above link then click on the link in the first tweet that warns you it is sensitive material – in fact there is nothing sensitive there, so don’t worry.]

Now we come to the essential Mr Ian Henderson. Mr Henderson was in charge of the engineering sub-group of the OPCW Fact Finding Mission. The engineers assessed that the story of the cylinders being dropped from the sky was improbable, and it was much more probable that they had simply been placed there manually. There are two major reasons they came to this conclusion.

At least one of the crater holes showed damage that indicated it had been caused by an explosive, not by the alleged blunt impact. The cylinders simply did not show enough damage to have come through the reinforced concrete slabs and particularly the damage which would have been caused by the rebar. Rebar is actually thicker steel than a gas cylinder and would have caused major deformation.

Yet – and this is why Ian Henderson is more important to your understanding of the world than Theresa May – the OPCW Fact Finding Mission reflected in their final report none of the findings of their own sub-group of university based engineers from two European universities, but instead produced something that is very close to the amateur propaganda “analysis” put out by Bellingcat. The implications of this fraud are mind-blowing.

The genuine experts’ findings were completely suppressed until they were leaked last week. And still then, this leak – which has the most profound ramifications – has in itself been almost completely suppressed by the mainstream media, except for those marginalised outliers who still manage to get a platform, Robert Fisk and Peter Hitchens (a tiny platform in the case of Fisk).

Consider what this tells us. A fake chemical attack incident was used to justify military aggression against Syria by the USA, UK and France. The entire western mainstream media promoted the anti-Syrian and anti-Russian narrative to justify that attack. The supposedly neutral international watchdog, the OPCW, was manipulated by the NATO powers to produce a highly biased report that omits the findings of its own engineers. Which can only call into doubt the neutrality and reliability of the OPCW in its findings on the Skripals too.

There has been virtually no media reporting of the scandalous cover-up. This really does tell you a very great deal more about how the Western world works than the vicissitudes of the ludicrously over-promoted Theresa May and her tears of self pity.

Still more revealing is the reaction from the OPCW – which rather than acknowledge there is a major problem with the conclusions of its Douma report, has started a witch hunt for the whistleblower who leaked the Henderson report.

The Russian government claimed to have intelligence that indicated it was MI6 behind the faking of the Douma chemical attack. I have no means of knowing the truth of that, and am always sceptical of claims by all governments on intelligence matters, after a career observing government disinformation techniques from the inside. But the MI6 claim is consistent with the involvement of the MI6 originated White Helmets in this scam. and MI6 can always depend on their house journal The Guardian to push their narrative, as Guardian Middle East editor Brian Whitaker does here in an article “justifying” the omission of the Henderson report by the OPCW. Whitaker argues that Henderson’s engineers had a minority view. Interestingly Whitaker’s article is not from the Guardian itself, which prefers to keep all news of the Henderson report from the public.

But Whitaker’s thesis cannot stand. On one level, of course we know that Henderson’s expert opinion did not prevail at the OPCW. Henderson and the truth lost out in the politicking. But at the very least, it would be essential for the OPCW report to reflect and note the strong contrary view among its experts, and the suppression of this essential information cannot possibly be justified. Whitaker’s attempt to do so is a disgrace.

Which leads me on to the Skripals.

I have noted before the news management technique of the security services, leaking out key facts in a managed way over long periods so as not to shock what public belief there is in the official Skripal story. Thus nine months passed before it was admitted that the first person who “coincidentally” came across the ill Skripals on the park bench, just happened to be the Chief Nurse of the British Army.

The inquest into the unfortunate Dawn Sturgess has now been postponed four times. The security services have now admitted – once again through the Guardian – that even if “Boshirov and Petrov” poisoned the Skripals, they cannot have been also responsible for the poisoning of Dawn Sturgess. This because the charity bin in which the perfume bottle was allegedly found is emptied regularly so the bottle could not have lain there for 16 weeks undiscovered, and because the package was sealed so could not have been used on the Skripals’ doorknob.

This Guardian article is bylined by the security services’ pet outlet, Luke Harding, and one other. The admissions are packaged in a bombastic sandwich about Russian GRU agents.

Every single one of these points – that “Boshirov and Petrov” have never been charged with the manslaughter of Sturgess, that the bottle was sealed so could not have been used at the Skripals’ house, and that it cannot have been in the charity bin that long – are points that I have repeatedly made, and for which I have suffered massive abuse, including – indeed primarily – from dozens of mainstream media journalists. Making precisely these points has seen me labelled as a mentally ill conspiracy theorist or paid Russian agent. Just like the Douma fabrication, it turns out there was indeed every reason to doubt, and now, beneath a veneer of anti-Russian nonsense, these facts are quietly admitted by anonymous “sources” to Harding. No wonder poor Dawn Sturgess keeps not getting an inquest.

Doublespeak

Which brings us back full circle to the OPCW. In neither its report on the Salisbury poisoning nor its report on the Amesbury poisoning did the OPCW ever use the word Novichok. As an FCO source explained to me, the expert scientists in OPCW were desperate to signal that the Salisbury sample had not been for days on a doorknob collecting atmospheric dust, rain and material from hands and gloves, but all the politics of the OPCW leadership would allow them to slip in was the phrase “almost complete absence of impurities” as a clue – which the British government then spun as meaning “military grade” when it actually meant “not from a doorknob”.

Now we have seen irrefutable evidence of poor Ian Henderson in exactly the same position with the OPCW of having the actual scientific analysis blocked out of the official findings. That is extremely strong added evidence that my source was indeed telling the truth about the earlier suppression of the scientific evidence in the Skripal case.

Even the biased OPCW could not give any evidence of the Amesbury and Salisbury poisons being linked, concluding:

“Due to the unknown storage conditions of the small bottle found in the house of Mr Rowley and the fact that the environmental samples analysed in relation to the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal and Mr Nicholas Bailey were exposed to the environment and moisture, the impurity profiles of the samples available to the OPCW do not make it possible to draw conclusions as to whether the samples are from the same synthesis batch”

Which is strange, as the first sample had an “almost complete absence of impurities” and the second was straight out of the bottle. In fact beneath the doublespeak the OPCW are saying there is no evidence the two attacks were from the same source. Full stop.

I suppose I should now have reached the stage where nothing will shock me, but as a textbook example of the big lie technique, this BBC article is the BBC’s take on the report I just quoted – which remember does not even use the word Novichok.

When it comes to government narrative and the mainstream media, mass purveyor of fake news, scepticism is your friend. Remembering that is much more important to your life than the question of which Tory frontman is in No. 10.

For an analysis of the Henderson Report fiasco written to the highest academic standards, where you can find all the important links to original source material, read this superb work by the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media.

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Finally two housekeeping points. Even among regular readers of this blog, well less than 1% make a voluntary subscription and among all readers the number is even smaller. Money is an unfortunate necessity to keep the blog going, and all help is gratefully received – though I do not wish anyone to contribute who has any difficulty to afford it.

Secondly the blog has used the same photo of me since 2005, and it is high time to change it. I have found a photo in which I look at least 80, so hopefully it might keep us going a few years. I hope my kind technical team will get that done today.

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Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Craig John Murray (born 17 October 1958) is a British former diplomat turned political activist, human rights campaigner, blogger and whistleblower.

Between 2002 and 2004, he was the British ambassador to Uzbekistan during which he exposed the human rights violations of the Karimov administration. This led to conflict with his superiors in the Foreign Office until finally he was removed from the post. Specifically, Murray complained to the Foreign Office repeatedly that intelligence received by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from the Uzbek government was unreliable because it had been obtained through torture, a fact later confirmed by European investigators.

Subsequently he became a political activist, campaigning for human rights and for transparency in global politics as well as for the independence of Scotland. In 2007–2010 he was the elected Rector of the University of Dundee.

His books include Sikunder Burnes: Master of the Great Game (2016), The Catholic Orangemen of Togo (2009), and a memoir Murder in Samarkand (2006).

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?

UK Restricting OPCW Access to Amesbury and Salisbury Cases, Says ex-UN Chemical Weapons Inspector

A police officer stands in front of screening erected behind John Baker House, Britain, July 5, 2018

© Henry Nicholls / Reuters

The UK is restricting the work of OPCW specialists involved in the investigation into the Amesbury poisonings, says a former UN chemical inspector, after Britain invited experts to assist with the case.

Detailing that the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) remit will be limited by the UK’s ‘technical assistance request,’ Anton Utkin, a former UN chemical inspector in Iraq, stated: “The UK’s desire is that OPWC confirm the chemical agent, that the UK has already identified. That means that the OPWC specialists will be limited to take only those samples that UK will allow, they will interview only those people that the UK would allow.

“So it's very important for the UK that OPWC specialists only perform their requested tasks, otherwise the information about the investigation could spill out.”

It's kind of like detectives showing you slides of a crime scene, but only allowing you to see 3 or 4 of the dozens of slides, then demanding that you agree with their theory.

Experts from the OPCW will return to the UK following a request from the UK Deputy Permanent Representative who invited them to assist the work already taking place – in accordance with Article VIII 38 (e) of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

In March, former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in Salisbury by what the UK government reported to be the Russian military-grade nerve agent ‘Novichok.’ The Skripals have since recovered and were discharged from hospital.

Utkin who has previously led the process of destroying chemical weapons in Russia, said of the poisonings of Yulia and Sergei Skripal, that: “If you read the report of the Salisbury technical assistance, the OPCW stated very clearly they were not allowed by the UK to identify other chemicals found in the sample, other than those that were requested. And we know that the UK asked to confirm only one chemical A-234 [referred to by the British government as Novichok].

“So here’s the question, why was the technical assistance only asked after such a long time after Sturgess and Rowley were exposed to the poison. Because the UK would like to make sure that the OPWC would be directed only to the right spot to take the samples.”

On July 4, British police reported that a local couple was poisoned in Amesbury, a town not far from where the Skripal incident occurred. One victim, Charlie Rowley, 45, recovered, while his partner Dawn Sturgess, 44, died in hospital.

The time that has passed from the initial poisoning to the London’s request, was also cause for concern for Utkin. “It might be too late to take samples [from Charlie Rowley] because after three-four weeks the chemical nerve agent, would be washed out of the body due to metabolism. It might be difficult to find the enzyme affected by the nerve agent.”

In the case of [Dawn] Sturgess who died, metabolism processes have stopped, it is then possible to find the enzyme which was affected by the nerve agent. There is a chance.”

Utkin reiterated that it's the limited nature of the OPWC’s remit that will hinder the investigation. “I believe that if we were able to know about other chemicals that would be found in the bodies of the victims, it would shine light on what really happened to them.”

If the Novichok was Planted by Russia, Where’s the Evidence?

This is a good sign in our continual search for what's true - The Guardian is questioning the government's near-hysterical ranting against Russia and Putin. It's about time!

Simon Jenkins, The Guardian

No one has a clue about the Wiltshire poisonings – though the most obvious motive is someone out to embarrass Vladimir Putin

Emergency services on the scene of the latest novichok scare in Amesbury. In this still from a video, a man found unconscious is taken out on a stretcher. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

I seem to be the only person alive with no clue as to who has poisoned four people in Wiltshire. 

I am told that only Russians have access to the poison, known as novichok – though the British research station of Porton Down, located ominously nearby, clearly knows a lot about it. Otherwise, I repeat, I have no clue. 

It is very curious to me that both Novichok events occurred within a few kilometers of Porton Down, UK's very large chemical research community. Check out this map. Porton Down is even closer to Amesbury than it is to Salisbury. If I were investigating these poisonings, I would start right there.

I suppose I can see why the Kremlin might want to kill an ex-spy such as Sergei Skripal and his daughter, so as to deter others from defecting. But why wait so long after he has fled, and why during the build-up to so highly politicised an event as a World Cup in Russia?

Four months on from the crime, the Skripals have been incommunicado in a “secure location”. Barely a word has been heard from them. Theresa May has persistently blamed Russia. She has called the incident “brazen and despicable”, and MI5 condemned “flagrant breaches of international rules”. But I cannot see the diplomatic or other purchase in prejudging the case, when no one can offer a clue.

As to why the same person or persons should want to kill a couple, unconnected to the Skripals, on an Amesbury housing development, the questions are even more baffling. It seems a funny sort of carelessness. Did the couple pick up the infecting agent nearer the original site, eight miles away? Might the new poisoning be an attempt to divert attention from the earlier one? Could it be a devious plot, to make it seem that novichok is available on every street corner, from your friendly neighbourhood drug dealer? Or perhaps one of the victims, Charlie Rowley, has mates in Porton Down? Perhaps someone is showing off, or panicking, or behaving like a complete idiot. Who knows?

 The most obvious motive would surely be from someone out to

embarrass Vladimir Putin - one of his enemies

Now, I wonder who that might include? Gosh, hmmmm, UK? NATO? Deep State? USA? Ukraine? Oligarchs? Political Opposition in Russia? George Soros? No! It was clearly Putin determined to embarrass himself and ensure more sanctions on his country. That's the only thing that makes any sense, at least, to Theresa.

Since I have not a smidgen of an answer to any of these questions, I feel no need to capitulate to the politics of terror and fear. I can open my front door without cleaning my hand. I can visit Wiltshire in peace and safety and marvel at the spire of Salisbury Cathedral. I can revel in the remains of the bronze age Amesbury archer – whose death from bone disease has finally been resolved by the scientists. Where knowledge is nonexistent, ignorance is bliss.

That clearly does not apply to government ministers, for whom ignorance is not a sufficient condition for silence. The home secretary, Sajid Javid, said it was time “the Russian state comes forward and explains exactly what has gone on”. His security minister, Ben Wallace, had earlier reached the same conclusion, given that the Russians “had developed novichok, they had explored assassination programmes in the past, they had motive, form and stated policy”.

Like Javid, he asserted “to a very high assurance” that Russia was to blame, and spoke of “the anger I feel at the Russian state. They chose to use a very, very toxic, highly dangerous weapon,” and should “come and tell us what happened”. Since Moscow vigorously denies any involvement, it is hard to see how the Russians would now “explain”.

Specialist officers in protective suits investigate the first novichok incident – the poisoning of the Skripals, in Salisbury. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

Surely, three months after the poison attack on the Skripals, ministers could have produced some evidence for all these accusations? I am at a loss to see what motive the Kremlin might have to commit murders on foreign soil during the buildup, let alone the enactment, of a sporting event that is of mammoth chauvinist significance to Russia.

Clearly it is possible that freelancers, wildcats or private contract killers could have operated at many removes from the Kremlin. But who knows? The most obvious motive for these attacks would surely be from someone out to embarrass the Russian president, Vladimir Putin – someone from his enemies, rather than from his friends or employees. But once again we have no clue.

That the Skripal attack was not long before Russian elections might lend credence to this theory.

As it is, all we can see are the devious tools of the new international politics. We see the rush to judgment at the bidding of the news agenda. We see murders and terrorist incidents hijacked for political gain or military advantage. Ministers plunge into Cobra bunkers. Social media and false news are weaponised. So too are sporting events.

Sport is the most flagrant. The plea that “politics should be kept out of sport” is as hopeless as demanding the exclusion of corruption and fraud. The very phrase, “international” sport, drips with politics. Why else do politicians shower sports festivals with taxpayers’ cash? As the Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz would say, such events are the continuation of war by other means. Witness the obscene glee with which the British tabloids greeted Germany’s ejection from the World Cup last week.

Any politicians or heads of state who grace an international sporting fixture – not least one as self-congratulatory as an event hosted by Russia – cannot pretend their presence is apolitical. Hence the pressure on Theresa May to boycott the World Cup because of the Wiltshire poisoning – assuming that she ever intended to go, that is.

To all this there is an easy way out. As we flounder through the novichok morass without a jot of evidence, these crimes should be treated as they remain, local cases of attempted murder. They should be detached from global power plays, political grandstanding and penalty shootouts. They belong to the Wiltshire police and their advisers.

If nothing eventually emerges to implicate Moscow in the poisonings, more fool the politicians. If they were indeed a Russian plot, then the time to get justifiably angry is when this has been proved. Until then, I recommend the tennis.

• Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist