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Old 03-08-2018, 02:17 PM   #1
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Another former Russian spy living in the UK along with his daughter were poisoned using nerve gas

https://www.buzzfeed.com/hannahaloth...k8R#.ypLQYZogw

21 people are being treated for exposure.

Buzzfeed posted a multipart story about 14 murders in the UK linked to Russian Intelligence agencies.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/heidiblake/...RQG#.jr4XzlxW9
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Old 03-08-2018, 02:20 PM   #2
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So, Putin is an unrestrained assassin? Is it credible to believe that he doesn't sign off on every one of these poisonings?
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Old 03-08-2018, 02:31 PM   #3
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So, Putin is an unrestrained assassin? Is it credible to believe that he doesn't sign off on every one of these poisonings?
Unless he's got a rogue intelligence agency running around zapping people with nerve agents.

Also the rumor is that the chemical agent is Sarin Gas, which you can't really make in your garage and its considered a weapon of mass destruction, and pretty much links any crime to a nation.

so far only one other country has carried out an attack using a nerve agent and that's North Korea, but they have no links to this guy.
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Old 03-08-2018, 03:20 PM   #4
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So, Putin is an unrestrained assassin? Is it credible to believe that he doesn't sign off on every one of these poisonings?
Only if you think it's credible that he had nothing to do with Litvinenko, the numerous dead journalists*, the rogue forces in Ukraine and the meddling in the US election.

Sure seems like there's a lot of people running around Russia committing whatever crimes they want, huh Putin? Maybe you should get a handle on that.

* Damn, I just looked up the List of journalists killed in Russia since 1992. It sure is a hell of a lot - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...lled_in_Russia
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Old 03-08-2018, 03:41 PM   #5
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As bad as it is what Russia does, it's even more disgusting that the UK government seems to be well aware of it but doesn't want to act on it for fear of angering the Russians. Who gives a #### if you anger them?? They are murdering people on your soil. Do something. I would be furious if the Canadian government allowed other governments to assassinate opponents in our country.
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Old 03-09-2018, 07:41 AM   #6
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Russian state television has warned “traitors” and Kremlin critics that they should not settle in England because of an increased risk of dying in mysterious circumstances.

“Don’t choose England as a place to live. Whatever the reasons, whether you’re a professional traitor to the motherland or you just hate your country in your spare time, I repeat, no matter, don’t move to England,” the presenter Kirill Kleymenov said during a news programme on Channel One, state TV’s flagship station.

“Something is not right there. Maybe it’s the climate. But in recent years there have been too many strange incidents with a grave outcome. People get hanged, poisoned, they die in helicopter crashes and fall out of windows in industrial quantities,” Kleymenov said.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...tle-in-england
Lol, the balls on these guys.
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Old 03-09-2018, 07:46 AM   #7
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I watched Putin's Hidden Treasure recently.

https://www.netflix.com/ca/title/80135352

One of the interesting conclusions is that even if Putin wanted out, he couldn't. To many secrets of his would come out and he'd be done for so he is basically forced to be President for life. I don't doubt Putin is behind this in some way given how he feels about traitors.
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Old 03-09-2018, 10:10 AM   #8
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The UK seems more interesting in policing speech on twitter than solving actual crimes.
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Old 03-09-2018, 10:14 AM   #9
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They've called in 180 military personnel to help with the investigation - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...alisbury-visit

What are you referring to?
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Old 03-09-2018, 10:14 AM   #10
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Originally Posted by Huntingwhale View Post
As bad as it is what Russia does, it's even more disgusting that the UK government seems to be well aware of it but doesn't want to act on it for fear of angering the Russians. Who gives a #### if you anger them?? They are murdering people on your soil. Do something. I would be furious if the Canadian government allowed other governments to assassinate opponents in our country.
First of all, the government didn't "allow" Russia to assassinate anybody on their soil.

Second, what would you have them do? Fire up the war machine?

This is statecraft. Spies gonna spy. Some are going to die. Countries can't go to war every time a spy gets killed.
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Old 03-09-2018, 10:19 AM   #11
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At the height of the cold war, there was an unspoken agreement between Eastern and Western intelligence Services, that killing each others agents in the field was a waste and nobody wanted a hot war between the KGB and the CIA or MI-6 for example.

That's why both sides worried more about collapsing spy rings then killing agents.

A hot war was counter productive to the actual jobs of these agencies which was gathering intelligence and influencing politics and policy.

The only way that the UK for example could really retaliate would be to start killing GRU agents.
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Old 03-09-2018, 10:25 AM   #12
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First of all, the government didn't "allow" Russia to assassinate anybody on their soil.

Second, what would you have them do? Fire up the war machine?

This is statecraft. Spies gonna spy. Some are going to die. Countries can't go to war every time a spy gets killed.
Nobody needs to go to war. War is stupid. But do you think allowing it to happen is a good thing? And off course they allow it. That article references how it's being swept under the rug and quickly being proclaimed as natural deaths after a piss-poor 'investigation'. Call it what you want, but the Brits know it's happening and they do their best to cover it up so as to avoid a conflict with Russia (whatever that potential conflict may be).

If someone walked into your/my home and off-ed someone who lived there, we'd be cool with it since we don't want to piss them off?

Fact is, Russia goes to a foreign country and kills its political and state opponents in said foreign country. Foreign country covers it up. Maybe the terminology I used is wrong, but Russia seems to be 'allowed' to do it.

Either way, it's F'd up.
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Old 03-09-2018, 11:30 AM   #13
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Originally Posted by Huntingwhale View Post
Nobody needs to go to war. War is stupid. But do you think allowing it to happen is a good thing? And off course they allow it. That article references how it's being swept under the rug and quickly being proclaimed as natural deaths after a piss-poor 'investigation'. Call it what you want, but the Brits know it's happening and they do their best to cover it up so as to avoid a conflict with Russia (whatever that potential conflict may be).

If someone walked into your/my home and off-ed someone who lived there, we'd be cool with it since we don't want to piss them off?

Fact is, Russia goes to a foreign country and kills its political and state opponents in said foreign country. Foreign country covers it up. Maybe the terminology I used is wrong, but Russia seems to be 'allowed' to do it.

Either way, it's F'd up.
How do they allow it? What could they have done to stop it besides a completely new identity and/or putting him on a 24 hour watch clock?

This guy was a spy.

He has pissed a lot of people off in his lifetime and endangered as many. Fact of the matter is we don't know if this was an ordered assassination by Russia, someone with a grudge (and there are sure to be quite a few) or even the British themselves that did it.
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Old 03-09-2018, 11:49 AM   #14
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I think people are really underestimating how difficult it is to reign Putin in at this point.

Firstly, any kind of military option is off the table. You can send your own espionage/assassination teams back, but Russia is playing with a different set of rules. Extrajudicial killings are very difficult to authorize in Western nations, while Russia has no issues. Russia also doesn't have any standard liberties. They monitor whomever they want. If they suspect you are a spy, they kidnap and torture you.

Economic sanctions? Those only work where a population is free enough to put pressure on their own government to lift them. Russia doesn't care if its people starve. In fact, that's regularly part of their game plan. Russia also always responds to sanctions with a plethora of shady and backdoor deals with various other dictatorships. The EU and the USA already have heavy sanctions in place, and they do nothing.

It's basically been the same song and dance since Russia came into being over 1000 years ago. The Russian trump card is that they are always ready and able to sacrifice more than anyone else.

A major issue with perception is that there's constantly these comparisons being made between Russia and Western governments, most notably the USA, to push some kind of moral relativism. The fact of the matter is that Russia is playing by a different set of rules and is another tier when it comes to abuse of liberties. Russia presents themselves as a functioning democracy and their propaganda machine is constantly spewing stories about the abuse and poverty in the West, but nothing could be further from the truth.
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Old 03-09-2018, 12:05 PM   #15
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Well said. The sympathetic hearing Russia gets from some people in the West today is disheartening. No, the U.S. is not pretty much the same. If it was, we'd be watching the corpses of John Oliver and Samantha Bee being fished out of the Hudson, instead of watching them mock the president of the country relentlessly.
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Old 03-09-2018, 12:17 PM   #16
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Well said. The sympathetic hearing Russia gets from some people in the West today is disheartening. No, the U.S. is not pretty much the same. If it was, we'd be watching the corpses of John Oliver and Samantha Bee being fished out of the Hudson, instead of watching them mock the president of the country relentlessly.
The biggest difference is that in the West we understand that the job of the President is to distract attention away from the small cabal of individuals who wield the real power.
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Old 03-09-2018, 01:47 PM   #17
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I do get the Russia/Putin being "big evil" etc. In many cases, it's true and then some. I really don't get this OMG-type outrage about killing a double agent. Seriously, is anyone surprised by a foreign intelligence agency taking a revenge on one of their own turning to be a double agent? Killing of double agents is glorified in history, it is glorified in western culture (James Bond and Spy Games movies being good examples, numerous spy books). What is surprising here to anyone?
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Old 03-12-2018, 08:04 PM   #18
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Theresa May has given Vladimir Putin’s administration until midnight on Tuesday to explain how a former spy was poisoned in Salisbury, otherwise she will conclude it was an “unlawful use of force” by the Russian state against the UK.

After chairing a meeting of the national security council, the prime minister told MPs that it was “highly likely” that Russia was responsible for the attack on and his daughter, Yulia. She warned that Britain would not tolerate such a “brazen attempt to murder innocent civilians on our soil”.....

....Ministers on the national security council were told that the nerve agent used was from a family of substances known as Novichok. “Based on the positive identification of this chemical agent by world-leading experts at Porton Down, our knowledge that Russia has previously produced this agent and would still be capable of doing so, Russia’s record of conducting state-sponsored assassinations, and our assessment that Russia views some defectors as legitimate targets for assassinations, the government has concluded that it is highly likely that Russia was responsible for the act against Sergei and Yulia Skripal,” she said.

The prime minister said that left just two plausible explanations “Either this was a direct act by the Russian state against our country, or the Russian government lost control of this potentially catastrophically damaging nerve agent and allowed it to get into the hands of others.”...

....May said the government would consider Russia’s response on Wednesday. “Should there be no credible response, we will conclude that this action amounts to an unlawful use of force by the Russian state against the United Kingdom,” she said, promising to return to the house with a full range of retaliatory measures.

“This attempted murder, using a weapons-grade nerve agent in a British town, was not just a crime against the Skripals. It was an indiscriminate and reckless act against the United Kingdom, putting the lives of innocent civilians at risk. And we will not tolerate such a brazen attempt to murder innocent civilians on our soil.”

The tough statement means that a major diplomatic row is looming between Moscow and London, with expulsions on both sides highly likely. Russia’s hardline ambassador to the UK, Alexander Yakovenko, may well be sent home.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...ys-theresa-may

Funny feeling the response is going to be: "We have no idea what you are talking about?"
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Old 03-13-2018, 12:53 AM   #19
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Was Mr. Skripal in London late 2006?

Just asking
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Old 03-13-2018, 01:02 AM   #20
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Hey they own the US president, they can do what they want
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