OPCW Embroiled in Another Controversy Against Russia - NATO's Raison d'etre

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‘How is it even possible?’ Russia asks OPCW after report claims

team sent to Germany the same day Navalny fell ill in Siberia

10 Jul, 2021 16:52

FILE PHOTO. ©  Reuters / Yves Herman

The latest OPCW report containing data on its response to the ‘poisoning’ of Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny has glaring inconsistencies, Moscow says, adding that the chemical weapons watchdog has failed to explain them.

Russia will seek clarification from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on its findings, the country’s envoy to the chemical weapons watchdog Aleksandr Shulgin has announced. The document, presented at the 97th session of the organization’s executive council earlier this week, contains information on the body’s reaction to Navalny’s poisoning back in August 2020.

In it, the OPCW states that its secretariat “deployed a team to perform a technical assistance visit” related to the suspected poisoning of a “Russian citizen” at Germany’s request on August 20. 

The problem is that on that day, Navalny was only flying from the Russian Siberian city of Tomsk to Moscow. It was on that flight that he first felt ill and was then rushed to a hospital in another Siberian city, Omsk, following the plane’s emergency landing.

Someone must be psychic!!!

Russia demanded that the OPCW explain “how this is even possible” and why the organization had previously told the participating states that its team was only sent to Germany in early September, Shulgin said.

So, what do we have here?

When Navalny first felt unwell while still onboard a flight from Tomsk to Moscow,

the OPCW experts were already waiting for him in Berlin?

According to the Russian envoy to the OPCW, the technical secretariat of the chemical weapons watchdog has so far failed to provide any answer to these questions. According to Shulgin, Russia has “lots of questions” for the OPCW and will seek “clear answers” to every last one.

The revelations also elicited a reaction from the Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova. She said the glaring inconsistencies in the OPCW report only show that some Western nations, together with Navalny himself, are “going down” with their whole “chemical weapons poisoning story.”

Instead of answering Russia’s questions, the OPCW executive committee session saw another “drama” about Navalny’s “supposed poisoning with a chemical weapon agent,” Shulgin said. “Routine anti-Russian theses have become a ‘must’ for the NATO nations at any OPCW event,” he added.

Without Russia as an enemy, NATO has no purpose. Consequently, it spends endless time and money to prove that Russia is still the great enemy of Europe and America. NATO is well past its time of being obsolete.

After falling ill on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow, Navalny was hospitalized in Omsk and placed in a coma on August 20. The doctors in Omsk found no traces of any specific chemical agents in his body and concluded that his condition had been caused by a metabolic disorder.

Two days later, following a request from his associates and his family, Navalny was flown to Berlin’s Charite clinic. On August 24, German doctors said that the results of clinical studies indicated he had been poisoned with a cholinesterase inhibitor.

I don't suppose the doctors in Berlin were well prepared with a diagnosis two days before they even saw Navalny? Prepared by the team sent to Berlin days before it was decided that Navalny would be sent to Berlin.

The OPCW has also now said that “biomarkers of the cholinesterase inhibitor” were found in the blood and urine samples taken from Navalny that were sent to its laboratories.

Navalny spent more than a month being treated in Berlin and has since repeatedly claimed that Kremlin “ordered” his poisoning. Meanwhile, a report published in British medical journal The Lancet suggested that it was the actions of the Russian doctors in Omsk that might have played a key role in saving the opposition figure’s life.

Russian President Vladimir Putin also revealed back in October 2020 that he personally asked Russian prosecutors to let Navalny travel to Germany. The opposition figure was under travel restrictions at that time due to a suspended sentence.

Berlin then also repeatedly stated that Navalny was poisoned with a ‘Novichok-like’ substance – a reference to the infamous chemical agent supposedly used to poison former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the UK in 2018.

It's been 3 years now and we've heard from the Scripals once. I wonder why?

While authorities in the European Union's most powerful member state cited evidence obtained by the German military as well as analysis from two laboratories in France and Sweden, Moscow has repeatedly pointed to the fact that Berlin never presented any material evidence of Navalny’s poisoning, and did not share any findings with Russian officials. This is despite at least four formal cooperation requests from the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office.

Was Viktor Yuschenko Actually Poisoned? - Ukrainian Prosecutor Says 'No'

Poisoning that shaped 15 years of Ukraine politics

never happened – prosecutor on Yuschenko case

While this story comes from RT, I reproduce it here because there were questions,

even in the Washington Post, as far back as 2014, as to whether Yuschenko's poisoning

really happened

Viktor Yuschenko in 2001 (left) and after the alleged poisoning in 2004 (right)

©  Reuters/YK/AS/CLH;  REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko

Former president of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko was not poisoned during the 2004 campaign, Ukraine’s chief military prosecutor said in an interview, casting fresh doubts on the narrative shaping Kiev politics for the past 15 years.

At the time, Yushchenko led a Western-backed coalition against the incumbent Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, whom they accused of being “pro-Russian.” His disfigurement from what he called dioxin poisoning led to an outpouring of popular support and street protests, later dubbed the ‘Orange Revolution.’ Under that pressure, the Ukrainian supreme court annulled the run-off election Yanukovich had won, delivering Yushchenko the presidency after a revote.

Investigators found no evidence of poisoning

This week, however, the deputy Prosecutor-General and chief military prosecutor of Ukraine since 2014, Anatoly Matios, revealed in an interview that his investigators found no evidence of a poisoning.

Speaking to the Politeka online host Andrey Palchevsky, Matios said that he had asked Colonel Igor Nikolaevich Kozlov,  who had investigated the case, about what he found. 

Tell me, was there poisoning or not? He said “No, there was no poisoning.”

This contradicts the statement made in January by Matios’s boss, Prosecutor-General Yuriy Lutsenko, who maintained that Yushchenko had been poisoned, but “it was still unclear by whom.”

According to the official story, Yushchenko had attended a dinner with several leaders of Ukraine’s security service SBU in Kiev on September 5, 2004. He fell ill soon afterwards and was hospitalized in Austria on September 10. Blood tests showed a significant concentration of TCDD, a dioxin poison found in Agent Orange. 

Various Ukrainian officials have cast doubts on the story ever since, pointing out that Yushchenko never allowed a second blood test that would confirm the results, and speculating that the original test was tampered with. Yushchenko has since made a near-complete recovery. 

His government was not so fortunate. Its policies proved unable to deliver on the promises of economic prosperity, made the endemic corruption worse and fueled nationalism and intolerance between Ukraine’s diverse communities. Eventually, Yushchenko fell out with his coalition partner Yulia Tymoshenko, who went on to lose the 2010 election to Yanukovych. The former president went from widespread popularity to obscurity, with his party getting less than 2 percent of the parliamentary votes in 2012.

Using the same methods as the original Orange Revolution, another coalition of opposition politicians was assembled in 2013 to pressure Yanukovych into abandoning a free trade pact with Russia for a restrictive trade deal with the EU. The protests, backed by the US and several EU powers, escalated into street violence and culminated in a violent coup in February 2014. 

The coup government then tried to crush dissent with military force, leading to the separation of Crimea and the ongoing civil war between Kiev and the two eastern provinces, Donetsk and Lugansk.

Bayer Beware! Monsanto Found Guilty of Poisoning French Farmer

French cereal farmer Paul Francois © Reuters / Emmanuel Foudrot

A French court has ruled that US agrochemical firm Monsanto, currently owned by German drug company Bayer, was liable for the sickness of a farmer who inhaled fumes from a weed killer made by the company.

The 55-year-old cereal farmer Paul Francois said he has suffered neurological damage, including memory loss, fainting and headaches, after accidentally inhaling Monsanto’s Lasso weedkiller in 2004 while working on his farm. He accused the company of not giving sufficient safety warnings.

“Mr Francois justifiably concludes that the product, due to its inadequate labeling that did not respect applicable regulations, did not offer the level of safety he could legitimately expect,” the court said in its ruling.

Bayer AG, the German pharmaceutical company that acquired Monsanto last year, confirmed Thursday’s ruling. It said that was considering its legal options, including an appeal.

Bayer may need a few aspirin to get through the consequences of this ruling

“We are currently reviewing the decision of the court,” the company’s spokeswoman told the BBC.

The court in Lyon rejected Monsanto’s appeal on Tuesday but did not rule on how much it might have to pay. The compensation will be determined in a separate ruling. Meanwhile, Monsanto was ordered to immediately pay €50,000 for Francois’s legal fees. The farmer is seeking about €1 million ($1.1 million) in damages.

Interesting - the judge made sure the lawyers got paid immediately!

Francois has fought a decade-long legal battle against the firm. He had won rulings against Monsanto in 2012 and 2015 before France’s top court overturned the decisions and ordered the new hearing in Lyon.

“We are all happy to have won but it came at a heavy price,” Francois told reporters in Paris, adding: “It’s a big sigh of relief. It’s been 12 years of fighting, 12 years during which I had to put my whole life on hold.”

His lawyer Francois Lafforgue described the initial ruling as a “historic decision.” He said it was the first time a herbicide maker was “found guilty of such a poisoning.”

Lasso has been banned in France since 2007 and had already been withdrawn in some other countries.

Yulia Skripal Speaks to Media - Looking Forward to Going Home to Russia

Yulia Skripal, in first comments to media, shocked by poisoning but grateful to be alive

Guy Faulconbridge · Thomson Reuters

Yulia Skripal, who was poisoned in Salisbury along with her father, Russian spy Sergei Skripal, spoke to Reuters on Wednesday in London about her ordeal. (Dylan Martinez/Reuters)

Yulia Skripal survived an assassination attempt that U.K. authorities blame on Russia. But the daughter of one of Russia's most famous spies says she wants to return to her country "in the longer term," despite being poisoned.

"The fact that a nerve agent was used to do this is shocking," Skripal, 33, told Reuters in an exclusive statement. "My life has been turned upside down."

She was discharged from hospital last month after being found unconscious on a public bench in the southern English city of Salisbury on March 4 along with her father Sergei, a former colonel in Russia's military intelligence who had betrayed dozens of agents to Britain's MI6 foreign spy service.

"I came to the UK on the 3rd of March to visit my father, something I have done regularly in the past. After 20 days in a coma, I woke to the news that we had both been poisoned," Skripal said in her first media appearance since the poisoning. She contacted Reuters through the British police.

Skripal was speaking from a secret location in London as she is under the protection of the British state. She was discharged from Salisbury District Hospital about five weeks after the poisoning and has not been seen by the media until now.

The Russian Embassy fears Yulia and Sergei are being held against their wills. They say analysis of Julia's letter indicates that it was written in English by a native-English speaker. Russians, however, have been paranoid since the Communist Revolution - Communism and paranoia go hand-in-hand. Unfortunately, they have good reason for the paranoia in this case as it almost certainly is a false flag operation.

Sergei Skripal is shown in August 2006 at a military court in Moscow. He was subsequently relocated to Britain four years later as part of a prisoner swap. (Yury Senatorov/EPA-EFE)

"We are so lucky to have both survived this attempted assassination. Our recovery has been slow and extremely painful," she said in her written English statement.

"As I try to come to terms with the devastating changes thrust upon me both physically and emotionally, I take one day at a time and want to help care for my Dad till his full recovery. In the longer term, I hope to return home to my country."

International repercussions

Skripal spoke in Russian and supplied a statement that she said she had written herself in both Russian and English. She signed both documents after making her statement and declined to answer questions after speaking on camera.

British Prime Minister Theresa May said the Skripals were poisoned with Novichok, a deadly group of nerve agents developed by the Soviet military in the 1970s and 1980s. May blames Russia for the poisoning. It was the first known use of a military-grade nerve agent on European soil since the Second World War. Allies in Europe and the United States sided with May's view and ordered the biggest expulsion of Russian diplomats since the height of the Cold War.

British military personnel work near the bench where Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were found critically ill in Salisbury on March 4. (Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

Russia retaliated by expelling Western diplomats. Moscow has repeatedly denied any involvement and accused the British intelligence agencies of staging the attack to stoke anti-Russian hysteria.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said he thought Yulia Skripal was speaking under duress.

"We have not seen her or heard from her," he said when asked to comment on the story.

'No one speaks for me'

Russia's ambassador in London, Alexander Yakovenko, has repeatedly demanded to see Yulia, who was a Russian citizen when she was poisoned.

"I'm grateful for the offers of assistance from the Russian Embassy. But at the moment I do not wish to avail myself of their services," said Skripal, who wore a light blue summer dress and bore a scar on her neck. "Also, I want to reiterate what I said in my earlier statement, that no one speaks for me or for my father, but ourselves."

Mystery surrounds the attack. The motive is unclear, as is the logic of using such an exotic nerve agent which has overt links to Russia's Soviet past. Russian officials question why Russia would want to attack an aging turncoat who was pardoned and swapped in a Kremlin-approved 2010 spy swap.

A handwritten statement released by poisoning victim Yulia Skripal on Wednesday.

(Dylan Martinez/Reuters)

President Vladimir Putin, himself a former KGB spy, said earlier this month that Sergei Skripal would have been dead if he was attacked with a weapons grade agent.

"I don't want to describe the details but the clinical treatment was invasive, painful and depressing," Yulia said in Russian.

Security arrangements hush-hush

Yulia's father was discharged from hospital on May 18. At one point doctors feared both patients could have suffered brain damage. He is no longer in a critical condition, Salisbury hospital said.

Yulia grew up as the Soviet Union crumbled and then in the chaos that followed its 1991 collapse.

Her Facebook page says she started studying at Moscow's School No. 63 in 1991 before gaining admission to Moscow State Humanities University in 2001, a year after Putin was first elected as Russian president.

In December 2004, her father was arrested by federal security service agents on suspicion of treason: passing secrets to Britain's MI6 intelligence agency.

Skripal, recruited by British spies while in Spain, ended up in Britain after a Cold War-style spy swap that brought 10 Russian spies captured in the United States back to Moscow in exchange for those accused by Moscow of spying for the West.

Yulia arrived in Britain from Russia at London's Heathrow Airport on March 3 on one of her regular visits to her father. The pair were found unconscious a day later.

Yulia Skripal is shown at an undisclosed location in London. She said she is grateful to the staff at Salisbury's hospital. (Dylan Martinez/Reuters)

"I am grateful to all of the wonderful, kind staff at Salisbury hospital, a place I have become all too familiar with. I also think fondly of those who helped us on the street on the day of the attack."

Police have said they would not discuss the security arrangements in place for the Skripals.

Nick Bailey, a British police officer who responded to the incident, was also hospitalized and subsequently released weeks before the Skripals.