Quote:
Originally Posted by Pointman
If this is a message to UK, what it is?
To me, killing former spies, traitors, opponents and such is still more or less an internal matter, even if it is being resolved on the foreign soil.
Another question is why so many of such characters are in UK of all countries. Not in Spain, New Zealand, China, whatever.
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I think Putin's messaging here is multi-faceted to different audiences. For this particular assassination and the follow up after.
Given the context of the Brexit manipulation, this assassination and the immediate Glushkov assassination afterwards, along with the weapon of choice used, this is definitely not an internal matter at all. Putin could have used something that did very little collateral damage such as Ricin pellets and Polonium, which have been used in the past. Instead the weapon of choice here was a nerve agent that is persistent and has also hospitalized 21 other British citizens.
So to me, in the wider context of past Russian actions in the past year, Putin to the UK: "Stay out of Putin's finances, income sources and Russian sphere of influence matters otherwise we our clandestine services will act and continue to act with impunity within your borders and we will continue to destabilize your country. We will hit you where it hurts, you will know it was us and your intelligence services will not be able to stop us from carrying out our goals whatever they may be."