Russia's at it again

@antihenry

'So he was arrested, convicted, pardoned and later swapped. What was the point of killing him years later when they had no use for him anymore?'

Well that's true. But he could have withheld some some sensitive intel from MI6 as insurance, which FSB only got wind of recently. Or maybe he was ready to go back to Russia and reveal intel on MI6 so they had him whacked and made it look like Russia. No one knows. But to blame it squarely on Russia or Putin is ridiculous at this point.
 
Its almost certainly Putin.
I get the "why bother now" argument, but actually I think this situation is far more scary for any current agent thinking about defecting. It won't matter if you are pardoned, allowed to live in another country, many years may have passed, but we'll still get you. The use of such a rare substance is an obvious "Russia did it" tag, even if they'll never admit to it.
I'm sure there are plenty of ways you can kill someone without having to have it produced in a Moscow laboratory.
 
Red Defence said:
We’re probably a fair way off from solving the complexities of this nerve agent attack, in terms of who was responsible and what their motivation was, but even so I doubt that whoever was responsible would have any qualms about carrying out a similar attack in France, Germany or elsewhere in the world.

They will get rid of who they want, when they want if it suits their agenda. It’s hardly a slap in the face to the UK or Boris. It’s not really done anything to the UK.

It is possible that this ex Russian agent has been “active” lately in ways we know nothing about....yet.
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Aside from the fact that it injured 20 innocent people, if Russia were involved then it is a blatant state assassination attempt on foreign soil. That's an act of aggression they haven't really even shown the respect of pretending to disguise.

Being able to keep double agents safe is crucial in attracting other converts in the future. These people put their family and their own lives at enormous risk to pass information and secrets, under the proviso they will be given a new life of comfort, anonymity and safety on the other side. Once their home country starts finding and killing them so publicly those offers start to look a lot less attractive.
 
Red Defence said:
Sure..but they were probably only interested in affecting the two main targets. This was a targeted attack after all and these are usually personal.
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What's to prevent Putin from killing anyone in any country with this type of attack? As far as he's concerned, he can do whatever he wants and get away with it. It won't be long before he starts killing foreign nationals on foreign soil. The murder of Seth Rich comes to mind here as most of us are convinced that Russia had a part to play in that.
 
Il Prete Rosso said:
What's to prevent Putin from killing anyone in any country with this type of attack? As far as he's concerned, he can do whatever he wants and get away with it. It won't be long before he starts killing foreign nationals on foreign soil. The murder of Seth Rich comes to mind here as most of us are convinced that Russia had a part to play in that.
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It's easy to assassinate almost anyone if a country really wants to, other than a few key head of the states most of us has no security details enough to prevent a highly government trained assassin from killing us.

It's the fear of retaliation and probably some sort of unwritten rules that prevents countries from sniping people of interest
 
diarm said:
Aside from the fact that it injured 20 innocent people, if Russia were involved then it is a blatant state assassination attempt on foreign soil. That's an act of aggression they haven't really even shown the respect of pretending to disguise.

Being able to keep double agents safe is crucial in attracting other converts in the future. These people put their family and their own lives at enormous risk to pass information and secrets, under the proviso they will be given a new life of comfort, anonymity and safety on the other side. Once their home country starts finding and killing them so publicly those offers start to look a lot less attractive.
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According to Sky News only 3 people needed treatment.

"In addition to the three inpatients receiving treatment, in line with Public Health England guidance which asked anyone who was in the area and concerned to come forward if feeling unwell, we have seen and assessed a number of people who did not require further treatment.

If he had wanted he could have chosen a life of anonymity but he didn’t. He kept his own name and it was listed on all records. He was comfortably off and bought his house with cash.
 
Il Prete Rosso said:
What's to prevent Putin from killing anyone in any country with this type of attack? As far as he's concerned, he can do whatever he wants and get away with it. It won't be long before he starts killing foreign nationals on foreign soil. The murder of Seth Rich comes to mind here as most of us are convinced that Russia had a part to play in that.
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There is nothing to stop him, just as there is nothing to stop any other country from doing the same and just is there is nothing to stop us from doing the same in other countries.
 
Red Defence said:
According to Sky News only 3 people needed treatment.

"In addition to the three inpatients receiving treatment, in line with Public Health England guidance which asked anyone who was in the area and concerned to come forward if feeling unwell, we have seen and assessed a number of people who did not require further treatment.

If he had wanted he could have chosen a life of anonymity but he didn’t. He kept his own name and it was listed on all records. He was comfortably off and bought his house with cash.
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Fair enough, I didn't realise that about him keeping his name.
 
Makes me wonder if MI5/MI6 also kill defected spies in Russia every once in a while.
 
VorZakone said:
Makes me wonder if MI5/MI6 also kill defected spies in Russia every once in a while.
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They would be much harder to get in Russia. Best case scenario in that case would be to wait until they go on vacation to either Turkey, Egypt, or Thailand (common Russian tourist destinations) and kidnap or kill them there. For the Russians, its much simpler since European and North American countries are generally easier to penetrate and conduct covert operations in.
 
diarm said:
Aside from the fact that it injured 20 innocent people, if Russia were involved then it is a blatant state assassination attempt on foreign soil. That's an act of aggression they haven't really even shown the respect of pretending to disguise.

Being able to keep double agents safe is crucial in attracting other converts in the future. These people put their family and their own lives at enormous risk to pass information and secrets, under the proviso they will be given a new life of comfort, anonymity and safety on the other side. Once their home country starts finding and killing them so publicly those offers start to look a lot less attractive.
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On topic of double agent i dont think old fashione espionage exist that much these days.

I suspect most of the espionage would be done ina basement hacker vs hacker style. Almost anything is digitally saved these days it'll be more practical to hack the computer
 
Interesting developments.


Sky News' correspondent Martin Brunt says "very dynamic" activity is ongoing at the grave of Liudmila Skripal

He describes responders in silver coloured suits, with hoods secured around gas masks, ambulance crews and a police forensics tent.

"It's not immediately clear what's going on but there is a huge operation going on around the site of Liudmila Skripal's grave," Martin Brunt says.
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Red Defence said:
Interesting developments.
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They were analysing the grave a few days ago. It’s a very logical spot to perform the attack if you think about it.

You can visit it in the night and there will never be a trace of you being there, no CCTV, nobody to witness the car.

You can then leave something on the grave stone, like a bit of tape over the name or date, something nobody else will notice or question but someone visiting the grave will and obviously attempt to remove. By pulling the tape off they release the agent and come into contact with it.

That’s just my completely uninformed suggestion on how it might have been carried out but you get the idea.
 
Pexbo said:
It's not sloppiness, it's calculated hysteria and bravado.
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I suppose there is that aspect of it but surely the innocents caught up in it indicates sloppiness?

Litvinenko one was definitely sloppy.
 
Yes but you never hear about the successful ones. I met the patrol commander of Bravo One Zero but nobody knows his name because their patrol wasn't a feck-up.
 
2cents said:
The Mossad is overrated, you should read about the time they tried to kill Khalid Mishal in Amman.
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They've been up to amazing amounts of shite in history.

'By Way of Deception' written by a former agent of theirs describe some howlers, but also some serious success.
 
SwansonsTache said:
They've been up to amazing amounts of shite in history.

'By Way of Deception' written by a former agent of theirs describe some howlers, but also some serious success.
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Yeah but their major successes were all ages ago. That comedy they carried on in Dubai is the most recent high profile example of them fecking up, but they're constantly having agents uncovered in Lebanon in more recent years.
 
Grinner said:
Yes but you never hear about the successful ones
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That's true, in fairness the Mossad are probably behind all those assassinations of scientists and nuclear sabotage in Iran.
 
Unless May is prepared to actually take some coherent steps to sanction the Russians, simply accusing them won't do much. Putin will simply deny it and ask for proof like he always does.
 
Raoul said:
Unless May is prepared to actually take some coherent steps to sanction the Russians, simply accusing them won't do much. Putin will simply deny it and ask for proof like he always does.
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It'll hurt her EU negotiations. If she brought in sanctions, Putin will get Trump to publicly say it's unlikely the UK will get a good deal with them...
 
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