Russian Opposition Leader Poisoned

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by blankall

I get the idea that Russia's game, historically anyways, is all about the long game. They constantly seem to be pushing the envelope.

You may be right that Putin is just pandering to this idea of expansion to maintain his own grip on power, but the practical effect is Russia invading surrounding nations. Post-USSR it seemed to start out in places that nobody paid much attention to, largely in the North Caucasus. However, more recently the invasions seem to be getting bolder and bolder, like the Crimea. They also seem to be actively collapsing the governments of surrounding nations, with the purpose of annexing portions of them.

I honestly think that if the Russians had an expanding and healthy population, we'd be seeing them implementing their current strategy on a much larger scale.

Russia and their former KGB agents/fascists have been planning their resurgence since the humiliation of the country in the mid 1990s by the oligarchs and Yeltsin, but that strategy has always centered around maximizing and re-establishing the former Soviet spheres of influence and countering US influence rather than global dominance that was the goal of the CCCP.

An interesting read is the "Foundation of Geopolitics" by fascist writer Aleksandr Dugin that has been adopted by the Kremlin as it's official internal playbook in 1997.

Highlights from the playbook, any of these sound familiar?

• Germany should be offered political dominance over Central Europe.
• France should be encouraged to form a "Franco-German bloc", as they both have a "firm anti-Atlanticist tradition"
• The UK should be cut off from Europe as they are merely described as an "extraterritorial floating base of the U.S."
• Finland should be absorbed into Russia
• Ukraine should be annexed by Russia because Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning
• Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland should be granted a "slave status" under a new Russia-Eurasian bloc
• Russian-Islamic alliance Russia–Syria–Iran–Iraq coalition as they would be "at the foundation of anti-Atlanticist strategy"
• Iran is a key ally and "Moscow–Tehran axis" should be formed
• Georgia should be dismantled and will be incorporated into Russia
• Create "geopolitical shocks" within Turkey (destroying US ties). These can be achieved by employing Kurds, Armenians and other minorities
• China "must, to the maximum degree possible, be dismantled", as they represent a danger to Russia
• In the US, Russia should use its special services within the borders of the US to fuel instability and separatism

We've seen all of these implemented by Russian intelligence assets over the past two decades with Brexit, rise of Erdogan, Iranian weapons deals, Trump, invasion of Georgia/South Ossetia, Crimea, racism against African-Americans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founda...of_Geopolitics

[FlameOn]

Meanwhile Russian doctors had been blocking the comatose Alexei Navalny from being transported to Germany for treatment until this morning. Apparently whatever he was hit with was hazardous enough to require hazmat suits for visitors with Russian doctors insisting Navalny was simply suffering from a "metabolic disorder" lol.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53865811

[mrdonkey]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

Meanwhile Russian doctors had been blocking the comatose Alexei Navalny from being transported to Germany for treatment until this morning. Apparently whatever he was hit with was hazardous enough to require hazmat suits for visitors with Russian doctors insisting Navalny was simply suffering from a "metabolic disorder" lol.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53865811

I'm looking forward to waking up tomorrow morning to learn Navalny miraculously woke up from his coma and shot himself 37 times in the chest with a machine gun.

[GreenLantern2814]

The Gulag Archipelago should be required reading for every grade 12 student in this country.

[Nyah]

They're letting him go to Germany. Although I'll believe it when he actually arrives.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1296962682172723206

[FlameOn]

German government announces Navalny was poisoned with Novichok just like the Skripals and likely by GRU agents. Of course Russians deny this and demanded the Europeans release the test methods they used to figure it out.

There is "unequivocal proof" that Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent, Germany has said.
Chancellor Angela Merkel said he was a victim of attempted murder and the world would look to Russia for answers.

Mr Navalny was flown to Berlin after falling ill on a flight in Siberia last month, and remains in a coma.

His team says he was poisoned on President Vladimir Putin's orders. The Kremlin has dismissed the allegation.

The Kremlin spokesman called on Germany for a full exchange of information and foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova complained the Novichok allegations were not backed up by evidence. "Where are the facts, where are the formulas, at least some kind of information?" she asked.

A Novichok nerve agent was used to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the UK in 2018. While they survived, a British woman later died in hospital. The UK accused Russia's military intelligence of carrying out that attack.

The German government's announcement on Wednesday that Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny has been poisoned by a sophisticated nerve agent known as a Novichok makes this case even more serious than it already was.
Most importantly, it will increase suspicions that, despite its denials, the Russian state was behind his poisoning.

Novichok - meaning "newcomer" in Russian - applies to a group of synthetically produced nerve agents originally developed by the Soviet Union in a laboratory in Uzbekistan before the USSR disintegrated in 1991.

Western intelligence agencies believe that Novichok has since been refined into a hard-to-detect assassination weapon in covert techniques practised by operatives of the GRU, Russian military intelligence, including being smeared on to door handles.
Novichok can be deployed in both liquid and solid forms.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54002880
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54003014

[CroFlames]

I guess Germany has unsurprisingly emerged as the leader of the West since America's decline.

Merkel recently called out Beijing also:
https://www.businessinsider.com/germ...ng-kong-2020-9

In a sign of Germany's hardening position toward China, Maas used his meeting with Wang to urge Beijing to remove the draconian national law it recently imposed on Hong Kong and allow United Nations officials to observe the treatment of detained Uighur people in China, the report said.

This has been the traditional role of America, alas.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

German government announces Navalny was poisoned with Novichok just like the Skripals and likely by GRU agents. Of course Russians deny this and demanded the Europeans release the test methods they used to figure it out, so they can tweak their production to avoid detection by that test.

better

[afc wimbledon]

Putin doesnt want to avoid detection, he wants it to be just clear enough that everyone knows he did while not quite so clear he can't still deny it with a moderately straight face

[Firebot]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/04/europ...ntl/index.html

3 doctors so distraught they jumped out of windows after voicing their concerns.

He started very early as well.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20.../kursk.russia3



These methods are done to silence opposition, and in a deliberate enough manner to show that these are intentional.

Think of Yagami Light of Deathnote and heart attacks. Putin sees himself as divine judgement and wants it known that he is in control.

[troutman]

Two years ago . . .

Russian-Canadian activist hospitalized in suspected poisoning, ##### Riot says

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/russia...ilov-1.4821615

[CroFlames]

You kiss your mother with that mouth?

[FlameOn]

This just in. New fashion trend for Russian opposition leaders: Going commando

Alexey Navalny managed to fool Russian FSB agents into revealing how he was poisoned with Novichok by pretending to be a member of the Russian National Security Council debriefing the team about the incident.

Turns out Navalny had ten FSB agents tailing him for three years. After he was initially poisoned, but survived, they tried to finish the job and poisoned him again by putting Novichok in Navalny's underpants before his emergency flight to Germany for treatment.

That agent is gonna be falling off an apartment building pretty quick.

Details by Bellingcat and CNN below:
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-a...ot-to-navalny/
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/21/europ...derpants-ward/

[troutman]

Rasputin proved to be a hard man to kill

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/rasp...o-kill-1.67169

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

This just in. New fashion trend for Russian opposition leaders: Going commando

Alexey Navalny managed to fool Russian FSB agents into revealing how he was poisoned with Novichok by pretending to be a member of the Russian National Security Council debriefing the team about the incident.

Turns out Navalny had ten FSB agents tailing him for three years. After he was initially poisoned, but survived, they tried to finish the job and poisoned him again by putting Novichok in Navalny's underpants before his emergency flight to Germany for treatment.

That agent is gonna be falling off an apartment building pretty quick.

Details by Bellingcat and CNN below:
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-a...ot-to-navalny/
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/21/europ...derpants-ward/

You know, it says a lot about the quality of those who would replace him that no western intelligence service has put serious efforts into assassinating Putin themselves.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814

You know, it says a lot about the quality of those who would replace him that no western intelligence service has put serious efforts into assassinating Putin themselves.

I think it also speaks to the reliance the west has put into high tech while old fashioned field craft has been left to wither on the vine, we just dont do the James Bond stuff any more because we dont think we have too, we tracked Bin Laden by tracking cell phone calls, we drone strike targets now or send in a Seal team, which works fine in the third world where the countries have no real ability to stop us or object but is useless in China or Russia