UK - Sergei, 66, & Yulia Skripal, 33, poisoned, Salisbury, 4 March 2018

[Legally Bland]

Bizzare.
________________

A Wiltshire man has been jailed for breaching a cordon around the bench in Salisbury where the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, collapsed and for putting police officers in danger of contamination.

Jamie Knight, 30, who was drunk, shouted racist obscenities against Russians and bit an officer and a security guard as they tried to restrain him.

The scaffolder from Wilton, near Salisbury, yelled at police that they should go and catch the person “that killed the Russian”, adding: “I hope he dies and his kids die too.” He continued: “Go and tell the ****ing Russian to ****ing die – I hate the Russians.”

...

“These cordoned off areas are twofold; for the protection of the public and to protect the integrity of the investigation.

“The defendant was under the influence of alcohol and has breached the cordon by entering the site of the bench where the two victims were found last week.

“He has entered that site causing police officer and security guard to chase him - putting themselves at risk because that site is under investigation of contamination. He then assaulted them.”

...

Nick Redhead, defending, said: “He can’t account for why he used words against Russians and said he has nothing against them – he’s never met a Russian.”

Knight, a father of three, was sentenced to 16 weeks in prison and ordered to pay the police officer and security guard £250 compensation each. He must also receive supervision for 12 months after being released from prison.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...-salisbury-poisoning-site-jamie-knight-jailed

 

[Legally Bland]

17:28

Theresa May's Commons statement - Key passages in full
Here are the key passages from Theresa May’s statement

Mr Speaker, this morning I chaired a meeting of the National Security Council in which we considered the information so far available.

As is normal, the Council was updated on the assessment and intelligence picture, as well as the state of the investigation.

It is now clear that Mr Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia.

This is part of a group of nerve agents known as ‘Novichok’.

Based on the positive identification of this chemical agent by world-leading experts at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory 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.

Mr Speaker, there are therefore only two plausible explanations for what happened in Salisbury on the 4 March.

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.

This afternoon my Rt Hon Friend the Foreign Secretary has summoned the Russian Ambassador to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and asked him to explain which of these two possibilities it is – and therefore to account for how this Russian-produced nerve agent could have been deployed in Salisbury against Mr Skripal and his daughter.

My Rt Hon Friend has stated to the Ambassador that the Russian Federation must immediately provide full and complete disclosure of the Novichok programme to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

And he has requested the Russian Government’s response by the end of tomorrow.

Mr Speaker, this action has happened against a backdrop of a well-established pattern of Russian State aggression.

Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea was the first time since the Second World War that one sovereign nation has forcibly taken territory from another in Europe.

Russia has fomented conflict in the Donbas, repeatedly violated the national airspace of several European countries, and mounted a sustained campaign of cyber espionage and disruption. This has included meddling in elections, and hacking the Danish Ministry of Defence and the Bundestag, among many others.

During his recent State of the Union address, President Putin showed video graphics of missile launches, flight trajectories and explosions, including the modelling of attacks on the United States with a series of warheads impacting in Florida.

While the extra-judicial killing of terrorists and dissidents outside Russia were given legal sanction by the Russian Parliament in 2006.

And of course Russia used radiological substances in its barbaric assault on Mr Litvenenko. We saw promises to assist the investigation then, but they resulted in denial and obfuscation – and the stifling of due process and the rule of law ...

Mr Speaker, on Wednesday we will consider in detail the response from the Russian State.

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.

And I will come back to this House and set out the full range of measures that we will take in response.

Mr Speaker, 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.

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...ng-tech-giants-to-reshape-world-politics-live

 

[Taskforce88]

Novichok, really? The deadliest, fast-acting nerve agent didn't work as planned....

 

[Elley Mae]

Forms
Novichok agents may be dispersed as an ultra-fine powder as opposed to a gas or a vapour.
Identifying characteristics
Novichok agents may consist of two separate ‘non-toxic’ components that, when mixed, become the active nerve agent. No further information is available.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/novichok-agent

Exposure
The main route of exposure is thought to be by inhalation, although absorption may also occur via skin or mucous membrane exposure.
Onset
Novichok is reported to be 5–8 times more lethal than VX nerve agent and effects are rapid, usually within 30 seconds to 2 minutes.
Major symptoms
Symptoms are the same as those of other nerve agents as shown in Table 5.11 (p. 257). Local effects are thought to be immediate, while systemic effects may be delayed up to 18 hours.

 

[Elley Mae]

One chemical from the group, codenamed A-230, is between five and eight times more potent than VX, the nerve agent that was used to kill the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

There are more than 100 formulations in the novichok family, all developed by the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s.

Novichok is the Russian word for "newcomer".

https://news.sky.com/story/salisbury-poison-was-russian-made-novichok-pm-confirms-11287491

 

[Elley Mae]

Why would teresa may suggest that it could have been stolen from the russians and that would be the only acceptable answer/excuse.

She gave them cover she did.

 

[jjenny]

Novichok, really? The deadliest, fast-acting nerve agent didn't work as planned....

Not sure what you mean by that, considering its far from clear that the two victims are going to recover.

 

[dotr]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43377698

While some variants of Novichok are liquids, others are thought to exist in solid form.

They can be dispersed as an ultra-fine powder as opposed to a gas.

Some of the agents are also reported to be "binary weapons", meaning the nerve agent is typically stored as two less toxic chemical ingredients. When these are mixed, they react to produce the active toxic agent.

This makes them easier to transport as it only becomes fully toxic when mixed

.

If a person inhales Novichok, or even if it touches the skin, it begins to take effect rapidly.
Symptoms can start to show in as little as 30 seconds to 2 minutes.
However, systemic symptoms may not show until 18 hours after exposure.

rbbm.

 

[jellybeanz]

Thanks Gardener

From link.

"We have now learned that there has been some trace contamination by the nerve agent in both The Mill pub and Zizzi restaurant in Salisbury," England's chief medical officer, Sally Davies, told reporters Sunday.



Hope that authorities are checking the new hires. More then likely when Yulia visited they had a pattern of places they went.

I'd guess they carried the nerve agent with them(unbeknownst to them), or they were so saturated with it that their bodies left traces where they were in those places.

 

[Wish I Knew]

I so hope they survive this.....for all the obvious reasons. As well as I'd love for them to be able to provide info to the investigation.

This is absolutely incredible.

 

[Amonet]

Why would teresa may suggest that it could have been stolen from the russians and that would be the only acceptable answer/excuse.

She gave them cover she did.

I read it as her saying that she won't accept that cover as an excuse, because it would be just as bad to lose control of such a deadly substance to a non-governmental group acting on its own agenda?

 

[dotr]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...nerve-agent-samples-uk-deadline-spy-poisoning

Russia has summoned the UK’s ambassador to the foreign ministry in Moscow, as its foreign minister denied the country was behind last week’s nerve agent attack in Salisbury and said it would only cooperate in an investigation if it received samples of the agent.

“Russia is not responsible,” Sergei Lavrov said during a televised press conference that marked an escalation of the standoff with the UK over the poisoning of the former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia.

Lavrov also suggested Moscow would not comply with a Tuesday midnight deadline set by Theresa May to deliver an explanation or face retaliation. He said Moscow’s requests to see samples of the nerve agent had been turned down, which he called a violation of the chemical weapons convention outlawing the production of chemical weapons.

No one has suggested that Russia is gathering evidence to help British investigators. Klimov, speaking by telephone, argued that Russia had no motive to attack Skripal and suggested other former Soviet countries could be behind the attack.

In denying the allegations, he also issued a warning, saying: “I would just like to tell Russians who hope to hide in Great Britain from ‘bad Russians’ one thing: It’s going to be very unsafe for you. It’s long since become a place where bad things happen. This isn’t Moscow’s fault, something is happening over there.”

 

[jjenny]

I so hope they survive this.....for all the obvious reasons. As well as I'd love for them to be able to provide info to the investigation.

This is absolutely incredible.

It doesn't sound that they would ever return to normal even if they survive.

“Antidotes exist, but what does antidote mean?” Mr. Mirzayanov, who had leaked the project to the press and later immigrated to the United States, told Sky News on Tuesday. “You’re saving a person who has been exposed to this gas — but temporarily, not to die this time. But he will be an invalid for the rest of his life.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/13/world/europe/uk-russia-spy-poisoning.html

 

[jjenny]

Novichok, really? The deadliest, fast-acting nerve agent didn't work as planned....

We don't know if the plan was to kill them or to make them suffer. I don't think that it would be possible for them to recover to the normal state if they don't die. So if they goal was to make them suffer then it certainly was a success. If killing them fast was the goal, there obviously are much easier ways.

 

[jjenny]

"And The Independent has been told that the Salisbury nerve agent attack may have been part of a plan to leave a Mafia-style “calling card” showing anyone, anywhere in the world that if they betrayed or defied Russia, they wouldn’t just get a bullet in the back of the head – they would die horribly."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...ei-skripal-if-survive-live-body-a8253976.html

 

[Elley Mae]

Russian spy attack: Britain calls for urgent UN meeting

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...-may-to-set-out-possible-reprisals-before-mps



LIVE: 23 Russian diplomats have a week to quit UK over spy poisoning

https://news.sky.com/story/live-spy-poison-deadline-passes-as-russia-threatens-response-11289189

 

[Elley Mae]

Responding to the Prime Minister’s latest statement on the Salisbury attack, which confirmed that there was “no alternative conclusion” other than the Kremlin’s culpability, Mr Corbyn said it was a “huge regret” that the diplomatic service had faced cuts of 25 per cent.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politic...n-provokes-outrage-among-mps-failing-condemn/

He also appeared to question Mrs May’s statement, asking whether it is “still a possibility that Russia negligently lost control of a military-grade nerve agent?”.

 

[localnm]

I have hesitated about posting as this is not officially linked to the Skripals and secondly, at present it is not classified as a crime - but I thought it may be of interest.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...lushkov-death-london-suspicious-friends-claim


I am very local to the house of Nikolai Glushkov - the potential crime scene is still very much intact some 72 hrs after he was found. As well as his house there are two houses either side which are cordoned off and an alleyway through which you would have access to the back garden. I am not sure how long crime scenes remain cordoned off, but activity there has not really subsided at all.

It could well be that his death is due to natural causes, even if that is the case its been fascinating watching such a high profile potential crime scene close up.

 

[dotr]

I have hesitated about posting as this is not officially linked to the Skripals and secondly, at present it is not classified as a crime - but I thought it may be of interest.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...lushkov-death-london-suspicious-friends-claim


I am very local to the house of Nikolai Glushkov - the potential crime scene is still very much intact some 72 hrs after he was found. As well as his house there are two houses either side which are cordoned off and an alleyway through which you would have access to the back garden. I am not sure how long crime scenes remain cordoned off, but activity there has not really subsided at all.

It could well be that his death is due to natural causes, even if that is the case its been fascinating watching such a high profile potential crime scene close up.

Welcome to Ws localnm, thanks for sharing that intriguing info.!

 

[Legally Bland]

Police have launched a murder investigation into the death of the Russian businessman Nikolai Glushkov.

Scotland Yard announced the move after receiving a pathologist’s report that gave the cause of death as compression to the neck.

The Met police’s counter-terrorism command, which has led the investigation from the outset, was retaining its lead role in the investigation “because of the associations Mr Glushkov is believed to have had”, the force said.

“At this stage there is nothing to suggest any link to the attempted murders in Salisbury, nor any evidence that he was poisoned,” the police said in a statement.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/16/police-launch-inquiry-over-death-of-nikolai-glushkov