You have a very strange and wonky sense of proportion Sean

Should I compliment you on your conscientiously taking 18 months of careful thought to frame and decide to send this brilliant repartee? Or should I sympathise with one whose brain damage or other of life’s vicissitudes has slowed his brain to the point of requiring 18 months for the simplest thought?

“When in a hole stop digging” You should make that your motto.

From a 2010 Antiwar.com article;

Wikileaks Conjures Litvinenko’s Ghost

https://original.antiwar.com/justin/2010/12/13/wikileaks-conjures-litvinenkos-ghost-2/

In the article the link to Wikileaks isn’t working, so I’ve posted the link for it below.

https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06PARIS7904_a.html

See also:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5H2ikdck8F4

Video Link

and

https://russia-insider.com/en/politics/bombshell-french-counter-terror-boss-i-have-proof-who-killed-litvinenko-it-wasnt-russia

I think you meant UNOCAL and not UNACOL, and Khodorkovsky and not Khodorkosky. 🙂

No, just British secret services listened to the commenters on numerous sites who ridiculed their story […] So in this false-flag they increased the dose of whatever they are administering.

And I thought I was reaching with my (conspiracy) theories https://www.unz.com/article/revisiting-litvinenko-what-really-happened/#comment-2407120 … you show how it’s really done 😉

Have you seen these videos, yet? Fascinating life story:

In 1978, Dittrich was sent to the United States as a sleeper agent. His alias, Jack Philip Barsky, was taken from a child who had died in 1955 at the age of 10, whose name KGB agents had found at a Jewish cemetery in Maryland.
[…]
Barsky discovered that the people who trained him did not have an authentic understanding of Americans, and he struggled at first with his assignment.[1] While his instructions were to infiltrate political circles and get close to Brzezinski, he was not given specific instructions on how he was supposed to accomplish that. He also learned that while his English was excellent, he was very pushy and argumentative when dealing with people. He was shocked when he was confronted with this fact by a fed-up friend. He realized that he was essentially too East German to fit in.

– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Barsky#KGB_career

I Was A Russian Spy And Failed A Mission

Video Link

I Helped The FBI After Leaving The KGB

Video Link

No, just British secret services listened to the commenters on numerous sites who ridiculed their story about Skripal poisoning by super-deadly military grade nerve agent, with both of them recovering. So in this false-flag they increased the dose of whatever they are administering. Inhumane, but more plausible than the first flop.

British woman dies after Novichok poisoning

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-poison/british-woman-dies-after-novichok-poisoning-idUSKBN1JY0YI

I think the Skripals were just very lucky to have survived this…

https://www.unz.com/article/revisiting-litvinenko-what-really-happened/#comment-2401672

https://www.unz.com/article/revisiting-litvinenko-what-really-happened/#comment-2401824

Of course Churchill wasn’t a gentleman: he was an aristocrat ….

But your version of that old Churchill- attributed repartee made me look it up because one element was loose internet speak not Churchill. He would not have said “Miss”. He wouldn’t even have said “Madam” if he had been speaking in parliament. But the attribution may not be wholly apocryphal and he might have been plagiarizing. After all it is known that he was not originally a good off the cuff speaker.

Anyway you may find this discussion entertaining

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/08/17/sober-tomorrow/

Being an American, I can break my word not once, but many times, like the government.

There are different opinions about the origin of the word “presstitutes� on the web. Fact is, it does describe about 99% of MSM journalists and editors better than any other word you can find in Webster. Mind you, not only Western journalists, but all of them.

As to the media and propaganda, Churchill was quite right when he said:
“There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion.�
Thank goodness for the Internet, though, it made possible Unz review and many other sites where you can find grains of truth.

As far as Churchill’s style goes, he said this in parliament: “I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.� Do you consider this gentlemanly?

Judging by another of his sayings, the American policy did not change much since his time:
“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.â€�

As to Ukraine, it had a chance to become a country. I deeply resent that its elites made it a cesspool. I hope against hope that there still is a way to make a country out of it. Hope springs eternal.

I’m reaching here, and this is pure speculation on my part, but could it be that the Skripals were poisoned (March 4, 2018) by Putin, et al. to distract from the 200+ Russian mercenaries allegedly killed by U.S. airstrikes in Syria (February 7, 2018) https://www.unz.com/tsaker/book-review-losing-military-supremacy-the-myopia-of-american-strategic-planning-by-andrei-martyanov/#comment-2406731 before the Russian election (March 18, 2018)?

The story was picking up steam by mid-Februray and even pro-Kremlin/Putin-loyal Cossacks were complaining about it: https://www.unz.com/tsaker/book-review-losing-military-supremacy-the-myopia-of-american-strategic-planning-by-andrei-martyanov/#comment-2404648

Russian Widow Says Husband Died In Syria ‘For No Reason’

Video Link

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Published on Feb 15, 2018
Yelena Matveyeva says her husband Stanislav was killed in Syria, where he was fighting alongside pro-government troops as a private mercenary. She wants Russian government recognition of her husband’s service so that she and her children can feel proud of him.

Even if it was a degree of acculturation to the indispensable nation that was required I am glad you wrote that which has the ring of honest belief as well as reliable information. I must try it out on my friend with the son in Kiev who himself lectured in management there quite a long time ago. I know he tries to keep up to date by listening to/viewing both Ukrainian and Russian language broadcasts.

May I make a contribution to your credibility even if I don’t particularly want to empower your advocacy…. Your attribution of “presstitute” to Churchill made me sure you had been keeping some bad internet company. Perhaps you have a way to go yet in sorting through degrees of trustworthuness. The word wasn’t coined till about 50 years after Churchill’s death and has a vulgar ring about it that doesn’t fit his style at all. He was definitely of a generation who would quote “the pun is the lowest form of humour [or wit]” though being Churchill might have allowed himself some pugnaciously defended exceptions. So, check all famous man quotes for convenient false attribution [maybe get hold of a copy of the BBC Style Book] : -)

PS I see you don’t use that old form “The Ukraine” (cp. The Marches of Wales) which particularly annoys Ukrainians 🙂

As I live in the US, I will do what the US government does with international treaties: give my word and then break it. So, I will answer.

Mistakes are one thing. Of course, the journalists are what they call “well-rounded people�: they know nothing about everything. But Churchill called them “presstitutes� for a reason. When you see exact same story with exact same pictures in a dozen or so outlets, you know what’s going on, and it’s not an innocent mistake. That was how Soviet propaganda operated under Stalin and German propaganda under Hitler.

Ukraine. In 1991 Ukraine was one of the richest and most developed republics (second only to Russia), and now it’s the poorest among 15 recognized and 6 unrecognized post-Soviet countries, as their “elites� stole and squandered everything that was left after the USSR (including lots of weaponry and ammo) and did not produce anything at all.

Ukraine was very heterogenous to begin with, artificially created by Tsars and Bolsheviks by adding territories to the original Ukraine (the one that joined Russia under Bogdan Khmelnitsky; about 1/5th of current territory). More than half of the people have Russian as their mother tongue, about a quarter speaks literary (Poltava region) Ukrainian, with the rest speaking several Western Ukrainian dialects, as well as Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian, etc. Before Crimea ran away, there were people speaking Crimean Tatar, which became an official language in that territory only after Crimea joined Russia. Even without Crimea (which was “gifted� by Krushchev in 1954 in stark violation of Soviet laws), Ukraine consists of many disparate regions: Central Ukraine (the home of literary Ukrainian), Slobozhanschina (Kharkov region; people there speak proper Russian, without characteristic Donbass accent), Donbass, The South (Russian-speaking), Odessa region (Russian speaking), Galichina and Volhynia (where various Polonized or Germanized dialects are spoken), and Trans-Carpathian region (it’s the westernmost, but people there hate Galician Nazis even more vehemently than Russians; many speak Russian, Hungarian, and Romanian). Galichina represents about 5% of the population in Ukraine.

In and of itself heterogeneity of the country does not mean failure: Switzerland has 4 official languages, so does Singapore, Belgium has 3, etc. If Ukrainian rulers (all of them, since 1991) really cared for their country, they would have made many languages official and would have pushed things that unite people, rather than those that divide them. However, they decided that rabid nationalism is the best smokescreen for their thievery and pushed Ukrainian language down people’s throats. I do speak literary Ukrainian (the teacher of Ukrainian language and literature in Lugansk loved me because I was the only kid in a class of 40+ who could speak proper Ukrainian; BTW, in the Soviet Union the languages of all 15 republics and corresponding literature, even in those that did not have any to speak of, was compulsory in schools in those republics) and the dialect spoken around Lvov, where I was born and lived for the first 5 years. But these are not the languages of the majority, and exclusion of other languages is a sure road to disaster.

Today Ukraine residents are running away from that God-forsaken place in all directions. There are a few million in Russia, a few million in Poland, and likely another few million in the rest of the EU. In 1991 Ukraine had 52 million residents. The authorities are afraid to conduct a census, as it will reveal very depressing reality. Latest estimates suggest that there are currently 22-24 million residents. Polls show that more than half able-bodied ones wish to get out and never come back. Rostislav Ischenko, who worked for the Ukrainian government and ran away to Russia after the coup in 2014, said that anyone who is good for anything and has a chance to compete considers himself Russian and competes in Russia. The ones good for nothing count themselves as Ukrainians and are proud to be the biggest frog in a pathetically small puddle. He should know, he was there 1991-2014.

To the best of my knowledge (I am not from Crimea), more than 90% of the population of Crimea is happy that it escaped the madhouse current Ukraine became thanks to the “liberal West� without any loss of life. Donbass was not so lucky. I grew up in Lugansk and know a lot of people there. Brief summary is that they all hate current Nazi Ukraine, with about 50:50 split between those who want to join Russia and those who want to remain independent. The same anti-Nazi feelings and the same split of opinions is in the areas Ukraine currently occupies (the people in Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics call the parts of their regions under Ukrainian control “occupied territories�).
Russia is guilty of interference, but not the one you implied. It supplied Ukraine with natural gas as a fraction of market price until 2014 and allowed Ukrainian oligarchs to resell it to Europe at a huge profit. It subsidized Ukrainian economy in many other ways, which was wrong. Luckily for Russia, all of this has stopped. First and foremost, independence means that you carry your own suitcase.
Ukraine would have been viable as a federation or confederation, which should have been established in 1991. Instead, Kiev authorities (before current ones) stripped even Crimean Autonomous Republic of its autonomy, and never allowed autonomy of any other region.

I don’t think anything can save Ukraine today: as they say in Russia, the train has already left the station.

It seems a bit premature to put me on the Commenters to Ignore list without waiting for a reply to something you took so much trouble over and in which you started with an implicit question.

I recall when I was about 20 noting that every article in Time on a subject with which I was familiar contained errors. Later familiarity with the daily media confirmed the prevalence of error, and not a little group think amongst journalists and huge cultural blanks resulting from ignorance or commonly shared myths and prejudices. So actually getting things right even for those for whom it is vital and have staffs to help them is not easy.

In the case of Ukraine I have absolutely no prejudices – remember the 1930s’ references to even Central Europe as “far away countries of which we know little” – but I do have an Australian born professor friend of Galician Ukrainian background whose Australian son has started a publishing business in Kiev (to take advantage of affordable skilled labour) and he is at least as strong on the lies from Russia as you are on those from the side which starts with the view that Russia’s interference with Ukraine is the problem.

Personally I find it a shame that politicians’ fear of losing support from simple minded (or just busy and necessarily ignorant) supporters precludes moves toward sensible solutions. E.g. why not seek to create an autonomous Crimea that can have a vote to become part of another country in 40 years time? Plus some greater local autonomy in eastern Ukraine once Russian military support is withdrawn. (You are I take it familiar with the extent to which Russia has followed the US – or innovated – in using mercenaries? It was pointed out to me how much better it was for Russian-US relations that the 300 Russians killed by Americans or American backed Kurds a few months ago in Syria were not part of the official Russian armed forces).

My response to you is based on the assumption that you are not a paid troll, but an honestly deluded person, which may or may not be the case. In the latter case your behavior is incongruous: if you really believe BBC and the rest of MSM, what are you doing on this site?!

I must confess that I used to believe Western MSM once. I swallowed line, hook, and sinker their stories about Moscow uprising in 1993, and the wars in former Yugoslavia. My revelation came in 2014, when the “reporting� about Ukraine started. I was born and grew up there, I have friends and relatives as far West as Lvov, as far East as Lugansk, and in several places in between, so I know the reality of that unfortunate country very well. That’s how I know that 90% of the stories in the Western MSM about Ukraine are lies and blatant lies, with the remaining 10% containing facts twisted beyond recognition. Then I started questioning the rest. I happen to personally know people living in Moscow and in various parts of former Yugoslavia. Talking to them I discovered that the Western MSM (including your beloved BBC) lied through their teeth about these events, as well. Now I won’t believe a word BBC, NYT, and others of their ilk are saying.

Not to mention that you start noticing things when you pay attention. When the same story with the same pictures appears on the BBC site, on the CNN site, in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, and several other MSM, you have little doubt about the provenance of the boilerplate.

You explain closing comments by purely economic reasons. I have read the comments at the BBC site and in The Guardian when they still had them. Despite their attempts at censorship, the great majority of commenters questioned (sometimes rudely) clumsy propaganda pushed by those outlets. Therefore, I have a different explanation why BBC closed comments, The Guardian allows them only on stories nobody gives a hoot about (this is not just my opinion – I read comments on the Daily Mail and The Independent sites from “refugees� from The Guardian), and now The Independent is well advanced on the same path. This is too familiar to someone born in the USSR: it is hard pushing lies, you cannot afford to let dissenters have their say.

The uniformity of opinion in the Western MSM today reminds one of the worst times of Stalin’s or Hitler’s dictatorship. Even in the USSR under Brezhnev there was more variety. Compared to that, today’s Russia has boundless freedom of speech. From my perspective, this uniformity further undermines the credibility of Western MSM.

Anyway, this is my last answer to you. I am putting you on the list of people to ignore. You can hardly be proud of it: that “Wally� personage you mentioned is on that list.

Arrogance can reach the point of plain barminess. Not to read what I wrote before writing your non responsive** reply is worrying evidence.

** non responsive is a judge’s – or counsel’s) euphemistic way of saying a witness is not answering the question – a stage before deciding the witness is lying, emotionally driven or incurably stupid.

See my reply to FKA Max.
However, I know that nothing can shake the faith of a true believer, particularly the reality. If you sincerely believe what you are writing here, I have a mountain to sell you.

I don’t know what the UK tried to achieve with this, but May must be desperate (and not particularly smart). The UK government has already disgraced itself with ham-handed Skripal false-flag (even Germany demands proof, which is not forthcoming and never will be, as it does not exist), next trapped themselves in the boycott of Mondiale 2018, so that they now have to either lose face, or show neglect for the UK team, and now this. Instead of looking like idiots twice, they chose to look like idiots three times. Not to mention that they further undermine their credibility, which is pretty thin as it is. It’s their choice, though.

And again “without comment” under the heading about police saying the couple probably handled a contaminated container only a few kilometers from where the Skripal poisoning took place

https://www.ft.com/content/2d8dd476-8026-11e8-bc55-50daf11b720d via FT

As Porton Down is not far away I am surprised that I haven’t come across suggestions that the material might have come from Porton Down even if only from the loony fringe for whom mundane reality is not exciting enough. Maybe someone more attentive to these earth shattering events will tell me that I just haven’t been paying attention.

I think the FT is now Japanese owned. No doubt someone can make something of that.

I forgot to hit the reply button: https://www.unz.com/article/revisiting-litvinenko-what-really-happened/#comment-2402344

New developments:

Home Secretary Sajid Javid said the nerve agent was the same as that used on ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in March.

Russia said Theresa May’s government was subjecting them “to hell”.

Mr Javid accused Russia of using Britain as a “dumping ground for poison” after the second incident involving the nerve agent.

– https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-44727191

UK, Russia trade barbs over poisoning of British couple in Amesbury

Video Link

Yes indeed, keep thinking. If you want to send a message that a powerful state, with unlimited scientific and financial resources, will hunt down traitors/defectors you do something spectacularly out of the ordinary run of commonplace crime.

“naive” is pretty rich coming from a young man who is still so arrogant that he writes as though his speculations are knowledge rather than the product of his unexamined prejudices from whatever aspects of personality or upbringing they derive.

To start with I specifically offered the BBC link “without comment” for whomever was following Skripal related issues so your “Am I supposed to believe” is puzzling to say the least.

As to the abolition of the comments function on its website “years ago” (for reasons stated as?) have you ever run a business or managed a budget? Apart from the probability that there are, as for the ABC, plenty of ways of contacting the organisation wrt programs and receiving responses, it would not be surprising that a body with its charter would rightly regard itself as having an onerous duty to moderate the comments coming from its millions of listeners, viewers and readers as well as propagandists taking advantage of the BBC’s vast coverage. That could be very expensive in staff time. Why do you think btw that Takimag has eliminated its Comments? Also it has just occurred to me, Europe doesn’t have a First Amendment to protect the kind of free floating group libels that UR can safely allow. Imagine a Wally on a European website!

I suppose it is no use telling a young knowall like you who seems to think his knowledge and reasoning on everything are up to the standards of his scientific or professional specialty that I have known a lot of people working in the BBC, the comparable ABC, and other news organizations at senior levels of reporting, production and administration. And I have known the politicians, even on the left of centre, who have been angered at what results from their independence and the inability of boards appointed by government to have much effect. Are you aware that the BBC is still financed by the revenue from wireless licenses? The ABC used to be but now gets a multi year budget allocation from the federal parliament. Despite criticism from many, including politicians, it continues to waste money in ways it chooses including (my particular beef) running a 24 hour TV news service when radio would be all that is needed between 10 PM and 6 am.

If you knew the people working for organizations like the BBC and ABC you would know that your broadbrush rant is ridiculous.

By the way, in case you didn’t notice, the article on the BBC website was by the author of a book about the Skripals.

You can achieve the exact same deterrent effect with a few pennies of lead. But keep thinking, it may lead somewhere.

Am I supposed to believe that BBC, created and wholly owned by the UK, is not propaganda?! I am not that crazy. They must be particularly unbiased in cases involving their source of funding, the UK government. Give me a break. The fact that BBC closed comments on their website years ago further demonstrates how seriously they take their own stories.

You must be either incredibly naïve, or your views are determined by your paymaster. In either case, my sincere condolences.

You are really going over the top with the number of unsupported assertions you throw in on top of what you know about to make you sound like the hasbarists and amateur propagandists for other countries on UR. E.g. what the hell do you know about British intelligence in recent decades? How can you even expect to have people take you seriously when you blowviate confidently on such a subject? Ask yourself, would you have been able to write about Bletchley Park or Venona in 1955?

As to whether defectors are only killed in the UK, even if you Googled to do a quick check which I beg to doubt, how do you know that’s true, and if it is true surely logic offers answers like the UK being where ex spies, like Russian oligarchs choose to retire to.

As enthusiasts for these poisoning stories are probably still reading I proffer without comment this article on the BBC website I have just come across.

I saw this on the BBC and thought you should see it:

Salisbury poisoning: Skripals ‘were under Russian surveillance’ – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44717835

There are many more inconsistencies, but I don’t have time to go into details: I have my real work to do.

I understand. Thanks for all your valuable feedback.

Everything in this story unambiguously shows that there was no nerve agent poisoning, let alone poisoning with something as strong as Novichok is supposed to be. If Skripals were poisoned with any nerve agent, they would have been dead long before the bodies were discovered. For any sedation to work, the blood flow must be normal, whereas upon nerve agent poisoning oxygen-starved heart stops beating, which stops the blood flow. There are many more inconsistencies, but I don’t have time to go into details: I have my real work to do. Suffice it to say that that the number (five or more) changes in the “official� story within a week says it all. Incongruous pictures broadcast by the British authorities further undermine their story. I remember one with two clowns in space suits and a perfectly normal bobby without any protective gear right next to them. Faking takes more talent and smarts than telling the truth. Apparently, British secret services and the UK government have neither.

Here is the BBC mini-documentary interviewing the hospital staff that took care of the Skripals.
They mention that only 3 known cases of Novichok agent poisoning had been treated before the cases of the Skripals, so there was very little guidance and experience to go on in how to treat Yulia and her father.

Skripals doctor: ‘We expected them not to survive’ – BBC News

Video Link

BBC News

Published on May 31, 2018

Hospital staff who saved the lives of poisoned Russians Sergei and Yulia Skripal have revealed the concerns they had when it emerged they were dealing with victims of a nerve agent attack.

The Skripals had been found slumped on a bench on 4 March – but staff treating them at Salisbury District Hospital did not initially know the reason why.

Thank you for your reply.

Have you seen this Independent https://www.unz.com/article/revisiting-litvinenko-what-really-happened/#comment-2397848 article yet?

Heavy sedation seems to have been the key to their survival.

How could ex-spy Sergei Skripal recover after being poisoned with a deadly nerve agent? Experts explain how novichoks affect the body

Very little is known about how people can recover after being poisoned with nerve agents such as novichok, because so few people have been studied after doing so. As such, it is difficult to speculate on the Skripals condition, how they might have recovered and what will happen to them now.
[…]
“I’m absolutely delighted to hear he is no longer in a critical condition,” said Alastair Hay, professor emeritus of environmental toxicology at the University of Leeds. “It is possible he was being kept sedated for some time after the incident to ensure no overactivity in the brain was caused by the nerve agent, and to wait until the nerve agent was cleared from the body – though we don’t know if this is why he was unconscious.

– https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/poisoning-russia-spy-uk-sergei-skripal-nerve-agent-novichok-recover-status-latest-a8292291.html

From the BBC:

Hospital staff who saved the lives of poisoned Russians Sergei and Yulia Skripal have revealed they did not expect the victims of the nerve agent attack to survive.

The testimonies of the medical staff highlight the vital importance of the decisions made at key times: the speedy arrival in intensive care, the heavy sedation used to limit possible brain damage, and the importance of advice, tests and treatments suggested by the Porton Down experts.

When the Skripals were found, an opioid overdose was suspected.
[…]
Dr Stephen Jukes, an intensive care consultant at the hospital, said: “When we first were aware this was a nerve agent, we were expecting them not to survive.

“We would try all our therapies. We would ensure the best clinical care. But all the evidence was there that they would not survive.”

Both Skripals were heavily sedated which allowed them to tolerate the intrusive medical equipment they were connected to, but also helped to protect them from brain damage, a possible consequence of nerve agent poisoning.

Over time, the sedation was reduced and the ventilation switched from the mouth to the trachea, as shown by the vivid scar seen on Yulia Skripal’s neck in the TV statement she gave after she was released.
[…]
New approaches to well-known treatments were tried. Dr Jukes said that the speed of the Skripals’ recovery came as a very pleasant surprise that he cannot entirely explain.

– https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-44278609

Sources. If you check the funding of the sources you are quoting, you’d be appalled.

Scientist. Look, I worked in Soviet science (civilian, not military), and I know that only failed scientists were elevated to chief of security and other admin positions. Nobody useful in real science was allowed to waste his/her abilities this way. In fact, this is exactly the same in the US science: failed scientists become NIH scientific review officers running study sections, professional editors in journals that have them, high officials at Universities, etc.

Recovery. Nobody recovers after nerve gas poisoning. All nerve gases have the same mechanism of action: they covalently modify acetylcholine esterase (an enzyme that quickly removes neurotransmitter acetylcholine from the nerve-muscle junctions, splitting it into choline, which is subsequently reuptaken by the presynapse to be converted back to acetylcholine and packaged in synaptic vesicles, and acetate), thereby inactivating it. The result is excessive muscle stimulation, which leads to seizures of muscles, including your breathing muscles, and rapid (within minutes) death by asphyxiation. There are no antidotes known. Partial relief can be produced by strong antagonists (blockers) of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, but only if administered within the first minute. The story of Skripals is consistent with food poisoning (e.g., bad fish) and much weaker poisons that do not affect acetylcholine esterase. These also might require pretty harsh treatments, but eventual recovery is likely.

BTW, that is why everybody with elementary knowledge of biochemistry immediately saw that the videos of White Helmets, purportedly showing the results of chemical attacks in Syria, are fakes: a person in gas mask at the site of such an attack would be dead within minutes. Of course, ignoramuses, who these fakes were meant for, were duly impressed. Same with the Skripal story: knowledgeable people saw through the lies, but 99% of the public did not. No doubt, there are “professionals� who, for a suitable consideration, would vehemently assert that two times two equals five and a half. As they have no conscience, let God judge them.

It does not seem that it was simply a laziness on your part. Your statement, “I couldn’t find any connection between him [Steele] and Litvinenko,� suggests an intention to litter the Unz review with irrelevant and deceiving themes.
[From the second article linked: Steele was the President of the Cambridge Union at university, and was a career British intelligence officer with service in Moscow, Paris and Afghanistan prior to work as the head of the Russia desk at British intelligence HQS. While in London he worked as the personal handler of Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko. He was a respected professional who had success in some of the most difficult intelligence environments.]

Yes, it was mostly laziness or more precisely impatience/hurry on my part, annamaria, why I didn’t find or invested more time in researching Litvinenko’s and Steele’s relationship/connection.

Even though I did not find the connection between those two immediately through a quick Google search, thanks for providing the links by the way and sourcing your claims, I conceded that it could very well be the case and I gave an explanation for why I thought so:

but maybe there was one, which wouldn’t be unusual since the intelligence and counter-intelligence world/community is not huge […] “moved in a small world of Kremlin specialists,â€�

I never tried to deny it. I simply stated my limited knowledge about this particular subject matter at the time. I am not all-knowing, I wish I was though 😉

But again, as I stated above, the additional Steele-Litvinenko link on top of the Steele-Skripal connection actually strengthens my suspicion that the Russians were involved in both not just in one of the poisonings.

that type of link/connection would actually make it more likely, in my mind at least, that the Russians would be interested in eliminating Skripal, so he can’t and won’t continue to feed information and intelligence about Russia to Steele and other Western intelligence operatives.

As I said before, I was agnostic about the Skripal case and tried to keep an open mind about it and not reflexively blame it on (the) Russians (government), but you providing me with this additional information makes me actually more of a believer in the official Western narrative now.

So, I guess thanks for that, annamaria, even though, I am sure, that was the completely opposite outcome of your original intent.

Russia specialist Glees also did not draw any particular significance from the connection, but did offer this theory: Trump supporters in Russia could have taken matters into their own hands in an attempt to embarrass Steele.

“If Steele was running Skripal in Russia, then it [an assassination attempt] could be a way of getting back at him. It could have come from Trump’s Russian chums in America,” he speculated.

– http://www.businessinsider.com/sergei-skripal-had-links-to-russia-expert-christopher-steele-2018-3

Moreover, it seems that the facts of Litvinenko case have an anti-Israel bias for you.

I’m not quite sure what you mean by this? Could you, please, elaborate/clarify. Thank you.

“…I couldn’t find any connection between him [Steele] and Litvinenko…”
— This definitely identifies you as a non-typical Unz Review reader: http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-trump-russia-spy-2017-story.html
“According to British news reports, he [Steele] was a Russia specialist and worked on the investigation into the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian spy who was poisoned with radioactive polonium-210…”
— Moreover, it seems that the facts of Litvinenko case have an anti-Israel bias for you.
Why this righteous indignation about propaganda? — Nobody forces you to read MSM and Russian sources.
What about the real investigative journalists in the UK and the US, who have provided the superb and highly professional analyses of Russian “hacking” (exposing the zioconish and dishonest Alperovitch), as well as the stupendous stupidity of Skripal affair (exposing the opportunistic dishonesty of May & Johnson and making visible the nefarious chemical weaponry programs at Porton Down).
The Dawson article on the possible Israeli involvement in Litvinenko case (as well as other excellent articles on Skripal affair) became available to readers thanks to the alternative media. What’s your problem?

“Steele worked as the personal handler of Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko.” https://www.justsecurity.org/44697/steele-dossier-knowing/

“Steele had been working with the assassinated Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko.” https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/01/steele-trump-report-mi6-170115081202438.html

It does not seem that it was simply a laziness on your part. Your statement, “I couldn’t find any connection between him [Steele] and Litvinenko,” suggests an intention to litter the Unz review with irrelevant and deceiving themes.

Perhaps, if you were a typical Unz Review reader than you would not write these curious statements.

What is “a typical Unz Review reader” supposed to write and think?

FYI, both cases, Skripal’s and Litvinenko’s, involved certain Mr. Christopher Steele, an M[I]6 employee and co-author of the silly Dossier that became a foundation for Russiagate in the US.

Christopher Steele apparently had links with Skripal http://www.businessinsider.com/sergei-skripal-had-links-to-russia-expert-christopher-steele-2018-3 I couldn’t find any connection between him and Litvinenko, but maybe there was one, which wouldn’t be unusual since the intelligence and counter-intelligence world/community is not huge; from the article linked above:

After returning to London, he continued to work on Russia and “moved in a small world of Kremlin specialists,” according to The Guardian. By 2006, he was head of MI6’s Russia desk.

In any event, that type of link/connection would actually make it more likely, in my mind at least, that the Russians would be interested in eliminating Skripal, so he can’t and won’t continue to feed information and intelligence about Russia to Steele and other Western intelligence operatives.

You know, annamaria, the U.S. are not the only government/nation brainwashing their own population and pumping out “fake news” and propaganda. Russia is pretty adept at those kinds of operations as well. I don’t think this is a bad thing since it creates a certain balance of power/propaganda, nevertheless my goal is not to choose sides or a side, but to find out the truth, that is what motivates, inspires and guides me. Sometimes the Americans and the Europeans are telling the truth and sometimes the Russians and the Chinese are telling the truth.

Uncovering Russian Propaganda With Former ‘Russia Today’ Anchor

Inside Russia’s propaganda machine

First, Vil Mirzayanov was not a scientist, but a bureaucrat who was responsible for the security of the facility where Novichok series of agents were developed.

Would you be so kind to provide sources for this claim of yours. Thank you.

All the articles and information I have read about Mirzayanov state that he is/was indeed a scientist and then later became the head of “counter-intelligence” for that chemical weapons testing facility, which still required scientific know-how. Here is a job description:

He was head of a counter-intelligence department that performed measurements outside the chemical weapons facilities to make sure that foreign spies could not detect any traces of production. To his horror, the levels of deadly substances were 80 times greater than the maximum safe concentration.[2] (A full account by Mirzayanov is available online.[3])

– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vil_Mirzayanov

First, Mirzayanov introduced new chemical analytical methods; he monitored novichok weapon tests, including their environmental effects. Eventually, Mirzayanov rose to be chief of counterintelligence for the institute. Thus, as a scientist himself, Mirzayanov knew the technical details of the novichok program—plus, he had worked directly with the program’s principal scientists and managers. As a whistleblower on a covert weapons program, Mirzayanov was Moscow’s worst nightmare.

– https://thebulletin.org/2018/03/london-attack-saddle-moscow-with-chemical-weapons-inspections/

In addition, only a hopeless moron can entertain the idea that someone was poisoned with a military-grade poison agent, and instead of dying a horrible death within minutes has fully recovered, as both Skripals did.

Are you sure that they have fully recovered?

Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, are continuing to recover from a nerve agent attack, and their rehabilitation has been “slow and extremely painful,” the daughter said Wednesday.

– https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/23/europe/yulia-skripal-nerve-agent-recovery-intl/index.html

Russian spy poisoning: Yulia Skripal hopes to return to Russia – BBC News

Notice the new scar close to her Adam’s apple in the interview, which she didn’t have before. That indicates to me that the treatment she has undergone indeed must have been quite intrusive and traumatic. I don’t believe she is faking it:

Yulia Skripal filmed her first public statement with a deep red scar on her neck – and it hints at her ‘extremely painful’ recovery

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/skripal-poisoning-yulia-skripal-neck-scar-hints-at-painful-recovery-2018-5

Before, no scar:

Source: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/yulia-skripal-reveals-impact-of-salisbury-poisoning-as-father-sergei-still-remains-seriously-ill-in-a3811816.html

“I m pretty certain that Litvinenko was liquidated on the orders of Putin… On Skripal I’m not entirely certain…”
— Perhaps, if you were a typical Unz Review reader than you would not write these curious statements. FYI, both cases, Skripal’s and Litvinenko’s, involved certain Mr. Christopher Steele, an M16 employee and co-author of the silly Dossier that became a foundation for Russiagate in the US. For a person so assured of the genesis of Litvinenko case, your obvious unfamiliarity with Owen’s verdict (based on a highly unprofessional “most likely” grounds) seems surprising. But since you have already formed a final opinion on the Israel-stinking case of Litvinenko, here are some thoughts on Skripal case by a German writer, which appeal to common sense:
http://thesaker.is/german-writer-eugen-drewermann-if-only-we-had-listened-to-the-russians/

{I think you are confusing James Bond movies with reality.}

Nope.

{I can’t put my finger on a single success of British secret services in the last few decades.}

There are number of them.
I recall reading bits and pieces over the years. Granted, what is publicly released is often not the whole story, but Brits have had some successes.

Here is one:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/the-spy-scandal-mitrokhin-archive-how-mi6-stole-details-of-kgb-plots-1118771.html
[IN DECEMBER 1992, MI6 ran a secret undercover mission to spirit a former KGB officer, Colonel Vasili Mitrokhin, and his wife out of Russia. MI6 was skilled at this. The former London KGB station chief Oleg Gordievsky had been brought out in the boot of a Saab by MI6 in the 1980s.]

Another one is the infamous ‘Victor Suvorov’, aka Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun, the GRU officer who got recruited by MI6, and wrote the revisionist WW2 book (…on orders of MI6).

I can dig up more if were inclined to spend the time and effort.
But I don’t think there is a need.

From what I know, KGB was the best in their day (don’t know about today’s FSB or SVR)
GRU also excellent.
But US, UK, French intelligence services are in the same league, in my opinion.

And this is the case for all of them: they _never_ publicize their real successful operations.

As far as beliefs go, there is no accounting for tastes. People believed all sorts of nonsensical things over the millenia of known human history.

Personally, I smell a rat in the Litvinenko and Berezovsky stories (or one story with two bodies, as the case may be) – the whole official narrative is too improbable. Not to mention that the UK authorities did everything in their power to avoid proper court hearings, which strongly suggest that they did not have anything that could be presented publicly in the court of law (there are rules, remember).

Now, the link you posted. First, Vil Mirzayanov was not a scientist, but a bureaucrat who was responsible for the security of the facility where Novichok series of agents were developed. What’s more, this was in the USSR, not in Russia, but in now independent Uzbekistan. Furthermore, the US, not Russia, got the documentation and was decommissioning these facilities. Vil also published in 2008 all the “secrets� related to these agents in his book, so any competent chemist anywhere in the world could synthesize these compounds. As it transpired, they did just that in many NATO countries. In addition, only a hopeless moron can entertain the idea that someone was poisoned with a military-grade poison agent, and instead of dying a horrible death within minutes has fully recovered, as both Skripals did. Rapid change of British versions in the first week after alleged “discovery� suggests that even British secret services realized that their story was laughable.

But you are welcome to believe whatever you want, there is freedom of religion, after all.

Others, like another onetime Putin ally, 54-year-old Russian mogul Sergei Pugachev, also known as “Kremlin’s banker,” fled Russia and London for what he hopes will be the relative safety of Nice after falling out with Putin.

– https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cannes-inside-russian-oligarchs-powerful-presence-south-france-1001659

I think this confirms, that the UK, in particular London, is completely infiltrated by the Russian intelligence services and that the French government and its security forces are potentially more capable and competent than the UK’s.

More from the article on Berezovsky. By the way, I think he committed suicide and there was no foul play involved:

In 2005, 20 armed, masked policemen dispatched by the French ministry’s anti-money laundering unit landed in helicopters on the lawn of Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky’s $10 million Chateau de La Garoupe and searched the home from top to bottom. As in the Kerimov case, they were trying to find out who actually owned the house and another one nearby that Berezovsky had purchased. Berezovsky’s onetime close friend turned mortal enemy Abramovich was called into the probe when it was learned that an oil company owned by Abramovich might have been involved in the purchase.

Speculation centered on Berezovsky’s war with Putin, with some suggesting that Putin set Berezovsky up with the French officials so he could get his hands on Chateau de la Garoupe, which he said was acquired with funds Berezovsky “stole” from the Russian Federation. Berezovsky, who long had been feuding with Putin, was found dead of an apparent suicide in 2013 in England. In 2015, the real estate attorney, who French police said helped Berezovsky conceal and launder the funds used to buy his Cap d’Antibes homes, was sentenced to two years in prison, and authorities formally seized the Chateau de la Garoupe.

I’m pretty certain that Litvinenko was liquidated on the orders of Putin, for all the reasons outlined up-thread.

On Skripal I’m not entirely certain, since I haven’t really looked into the case. Also the timing of the incident seems to be not what Putin would have chosen, in my opinion, since it was too close to the soccer World Cup events/celebrations in Russia, and Putin usually tries to be conciliatory with the West before big sporting events like that in Russia, e.g. when he released Khodorkovsky early before the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, for example.

a shrewd PR move ahead of the increasingly controversial Sochi Olympics.

– http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2013/12/19/mikhail_khodorkovsky_to_be_released_why_is_putin_letting_his_arch_enemy.html

So, I’m keeping an open mind on the Skripal case that there is the possibility that the Russians didn’t do it or at least that the order was not given by Putin personally, but potentially might have been of someone else’s doing. Potentially to please Putin? Maybe someone else, not Putin personally held a grudge towards Skripal, and wanted it to be blamed on Putin?

I also don’t think Putin would have ordered Skripal’s daughter poisoned. That does not seem to be his modus operandi, in my experience, to poison family members, unless he suspected her of being a double agent/British intelligence asset as well.

The Russian Scientist Who Helped Create The Toxin That Poisoned A Spy In Britain (HBO)

I always thought that British secret services are fairly competent.

I think you are confusing James Bond movies with reality. I can’t put my finger on a single success of British secret services in the last few decades. I think their hatred of Russia is largely envy: Russian secret services had a lot of successes (including, but not limited to, security at Mondial-2018 and Olympics-2014), whereas Brits appear to be almost as inept as the Ukies.

{ I suspect that the UK government is more willing to engage in false-flag operations that others.}

Right.

{ British secret services, with their signature ineptitude}

I always thought that British secret services are fairly competent.
Maybe these botched operations are a result of their visceral hatred of Russia/Russians, which clouds their mind and causes them to screw up royally.

UK was certainly picking up all sorts of trash, such as mega-thieves (from Russia and various Gulf satrapies) and terrorists (including Chechen), etc. As for competence, the UK authorities only distinguished themselves in crying “wolf� many times too often. Considering how ham-handed was their performance in Skripal false-flag op, with versions changing virtually daily in the first week after the “discovery�, I am ~99% sure that the whole Litvinenko thing was similarly staged by British secret services, with their signature ineptitude. Skripal affair seems to be UK-initiated, as most other countries (despite their “solidarity�) expressed and keep expressing their surprise and incredulity. I don’t know whether more serious forces acted behind the scenes in Litvinenko or Berezovsky cases (both of these could have been just one case in two acts).

Or the UK government is simply less competent when it comes to counter-intelligence and/or the density/quantity of Russian intelligence operatives/assessts is just much higher in the UK than in any other country in the West.

The UK has been selling its real estate, etc. to the oligarchs and sheiks et al. at a higher rate than any other country I’m aware of, maybe with the exception of Cyprus, Malta and Monaco, in the case of Russian oligarchs.

From purely scientific point of view, correlation is insufficient evidence for the cause-and-effect relationship. From less scientific perspective, I suspect that the UK government is more willing to engage in false-flag operations that others.

“Russian traitors live in many countries. But they are murdered exclusively in the UK. ”

Not sure what this implies.
That the UK govt has something to do with these murders?

Thanks, Anna Maria, for sensible earthbound response to the Skripal lie.

Agreed.

It is plausible that the Chicoms have a role, but the Russians know how to keep them at arms length. Notwithstanding all the bonhomie with China, I’m certain that not all of Russia’s nuclear forces are meant only to deter Uncle Sam.

Well, those alleged billions are apparently the property of the Russian state. Also, Chinese banks grabbed the niche that European banks occupied in Russia, so now they are going to reap profits from financing Russian projects. South Korea and Japan eagerly grabbed the niche in supplying machinery and ships to Russia, which Europeans companies, largely German, previously occupied. Net result: Europeans are the big losers in the “sanctions� game, much bigger losers than Russia. Nothing new there: Europeans were the losers in everything since 1939.

As to anti-Russia hysterics, these are mostly paid for by Pentagon contractors and forces connected to them, to justify insane US “defense� budget, which is now greater than defense spending of the rest of the world combined and keeps growing. Ex-Soviet Jews were simply used along with anyone else who could whip up the hysteria. They might not realize that, but as far as real movers and shakers are concerned, they are as disposable as condoms.

Maybe Russians just weren’t ready to allow any contractor defraud taxpayers to the tune of 10 million?
But… What year is this picture? I’d guess 1930-s.

I was partly wrong. By mid-2006 Putin actually tried to soften his public image and the “stomach-kissing” incident was part of that attempt and public relations campaign to appear as less of a tough guy/macho man autocrat according to this DailyMail article, which was published three days before Litvinenko passed away:

Russians occasionally kiss babies on the stomach, but almost never five-year old boys.
[…]
Some political analysts suggested that the kiss was a clumsy attempt to soften Mr Putin’s image in the run-up to the G8 summit in St Petersburg from July 15 to 17.

The Kremlin had launched a huge publicity drive, with the help of Ketchum, an American PR firm, to counter critics of its campaign to curb democracy.

– http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-417621/Poisoned-spy-accused-Putin-paedophile.html

Maybe after the public relations campaign either failed or was finished Putin decided to revert back to his old tough guy/macho man public image?

I’m pretty convinced that Putin had Litvinenko killed for the pedophilia accusation and other insults, etc. directed at him by Litvinenko over the years.

I think the pedophile accusation was the last straw for Putin. And Putin’s comment that Litvinneko was no Lazarus pretty much seals the deal for me that he was personally involved and wanted him killed, to make an example of Litvinenko and send a warning to all other Russian dissidents that they are not beyond the reach of the Russian intelligence community in the West.

President Putin gives press conference

5. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Vladimir Putin, Russian President: “If this written statement really appeared before the death of Mr. Litvinenko, then this brings up the question why it haven’t been published earlier when he was still alive. And if it appeared after his death, then, naturally, what’s here to comment? People who did this are not the Lord, while Mr. Litvinenko is not Lazarus. It’s extremely regrettable that such a tragic event as death is being used for political provocations.”

Vladimir Putin probably approved Litvinenko’s murder: U.K. inquiry

P.s.: I just remembered today that I lived in and was about to leave England at the time of the Litvinenko incident and I was actually in London for a day either around the time Litvinenko was poisoned or passed away, but I don’t remember exactly if I was in London at beginning of November 2006 or towards the end of it. I didn’t follow the story very closely or at all at the time, maybe because it wasn’t covered in the press yet? So, I was probably in London in late October to early November 2006 when Litvinenko was poisoned.

Americans spent $10 million to develop a pen that would work in space, the Russians used a pencil. But

Dmitry Rybolovlev had his art dealer arrested in Monaco for overcharging him. I doubt someone of that type would trust a hired killer with a weapon that is 10 times more valuable that the fee he will be paid for the assassination.

Anything is possible, which is very different thing to a particular thing being probable. There is a difference between possible and probable. It could have been done the way the post suggests, but I think people who think it probably was done that way are ignoring the crucial differences between Russia and the wrongfully accused victim of a miscarriage of justice: Putin would not have to convince anyone.

Putin could be condemned by the West; sure, but Putin would know that he did not kill Skripal, and framing Putin isn’t like framing Amanda Knox. Putin would not be a helpless victim of the media lies standing trial in a foreign country. He would be in the Kremlin controlling his own home country that can destroy America and Britain, and evidence of the Wests malevolent intent would lead to a very dangerous response: he would put his ICBM’s on red alert if the Western intelligence services seemed to be framing him in that way, because it would seem like the West was preparing to attack Russia militarily.

Putin is not scared of the West and states as powerful as Russia react very aggressively to any attempt to intimidate them. He’d call up reservists and place the Russian armed forces on alert for imminent war if he thought it was governments, or CIA or MI6. They would not dare. Putin would certainly cut off the energy supplies to Europe especially Germany.

If it was Boris Berezovsky who’d killed Litvinenko and tried to frame Russia with murdering Litvinenko, Putin would order Berezovsky’s death. While openly living in Britain, Berezovsky would never dare do what this post is suggesting he did, which would be tantamount to signing his own death warrant.

Hope you have learned some facts from the linked articles.

Flattered by the attention but too long.

Is this also a tinfoil staff, Anonymous[436]? http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49751.htm
“Royce’s amendment rewrites the bill to direct the administration to issue regulations that prohibit U.S. companies from involvement with the BDS movement, as it is known. The bill covers those companies that attempt to “comply with, further, or supportâ€� United Nations or European Union calls for a boycott of Israel, including merely by “furnishing informationâ€� about them.
The Royce amendment does not specify the penalties that should be incorporated into the regulations, but it requires them to be “consistent with the enforcement practices� of the 1979 Export Administration Act — which allows for a range of civil and criminal penalties topping out at a maximum of $1 million fine and 20 years in prison.
Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., the Democratic sponsor of the bill in the House, told the committee during Thursday’s mark-up hearing that the authors had addressed First Amendment concerns and that the bill was only aimed at preventing U.S. companies from being “pressuredâ€� by the U.N.’s nonbinding resolutions.”
— Agan, who has been “directing” the MSM? http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6
— Going back to the article: “Guilty as sin, with a confession against Badri as well as being personally witnessed by two police, offering another mob boss money, Boris [Berezovsky] was desperate. … Fellow Media giant and friend Ruppert Murdoch promised to invest in the network and bail him out. And we all know where Murdoch stands. This relationship might also explain why Fox News and Sky News in the UK were so blatantly cheerleading the “Putin killed Litvinenkoâ€� conspiracy story.”

Russia seems to be managing its finances well, but I wonder what role China plays in financing all these Russian construction projects.

It seems to me quite plausible that all these billions that Putin allegedly looted are to be found in the new infrastructure coming up in Russia. They seem to be able to finance all of it themselves. The West would dearly have loved Russia becoming a Third World country. exporting raw materials and making nothing. But the Russia elite had other plans. That and the out-sized role the ex-Soviet Jews play in moulding perceptions about Russia, probably account for the bulk of the Russophobia we see; which is quite out of proportion to actual Russian misdeeds.

Slipping, are we?

OTOH, I never, ever seriously took the idea that the Moscow apartment building bombings were a false flag… but now I’m not so sure.

You’re first clue that it wasn’t a false flag is that the Western MSM claimed that it was. Normally, whenever anybody in the West merely mentions the possibility of a false flag (as in 9/11, Syrian gas attacks, etc.) the MSM shriek ‘conspiracy theory!!!’

Смутное врем�, the times of mistakes and deviations from the true course reestablished again by V.V. Putin are over. The jokes no longer apply.

I was looking forward to reading this article. I stopped as soon as I read this:

“The powerful and secretive Washington Carlyle Group”

Bizarre way to talk about a publicity hungry vehicle for alternative investments….

More for the “sensible” Anonymous[436]: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06-30/israeli-dual-citizen-convicted-making-hundreds-hoax-bomb-threats-against-jewish

An admirer and defender of MSM came to visit the “bad” Unz Review forum.
Anonymous[436], what is your problem with the alternative media like the Unz Review?
Please, share with us your wisdom on the Sean’s “sensible” approach to Skripal Affair. That could be entertaining.
Let me guess, you also firmly believe in Dm. Alperovitch very special analysis of the DNC computers (http://washingtonsblog.com/2017/01/crowdstrikes-russian-hacking-story-fell-apart-say-hello-fancy-bear-2.html)
How about the Awan Affair, the gravest breach in the US cybersecurity?
What about the untimely death of Seth Rich? — Here comes Debbie Wasserman-Schutz, the main protector and benefactor of the Awans family (and a chairperson of the Democratic National Committee).
What would the “sensible” Anonymous[436] tell us about Debbies’ brother Steven Wasserman who is in charge of the investigation of Seth Rich very strange death, despite the obvious conflict of interest? Or this also a tinfoil staff? ” https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/05/debbie-wasserman-schultzs-brother-steven-wasserman-accused-burying-seth-rich-case/ “Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s brother Steven Wasserman accused of burying Seth Rich case.”
This is not some hilarious story from the environs of Porton Down, the UK’s largest chemical weaponry lab: https://disobedientmedia.com/2018/06/on-the-skripal-poisoning-case-and-the-questions-it-leaves-unanswered/
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/05/02/skri-m02.html
“The German media report said the BND had informed the U.S. and British intelligence agencies about the case following the analysis, and small amounts of the poison [“novitchok”] were later produced in several NATO member states to test Western protective gear, testing equipment and antidotes. … The Independent reports that Germany had a sample of a Novichok agent back in the 1990s. … Yulia Skripal makes a public statement, in which she expresses a desire to return to Russia.”

Most oligarchs were/ are huge patriots when profiting in the billions , otherwise and all of them they have 2-3 citizenships in their pockets. After cmmitting crimes of all sorts they run to Izrael. The home of the crime.When the justice is coming, they are the big patriots,
Elsewhere !!! USA and british send billions of dollars and weapons through Gruzia for the Al Qaeda Chechen terrorists. As a part of the USA War against the terror !!
Rule of the kchazars oligarchs and Yelstein, was the rule of all sorts of vicious and ferocious crimes ! Never has been committed in the history…Not even by the Kosher Nostra in the USA..
Only they can do it !! Everywhere in the world, where it is kept secret !!!
And yea we are too normal to understand of these rats and reptiles and their unprecendented in scale , crimes.. Berezovsky and others kchazars wanted to smugle and to sell polonium to the terrorist and put blame /all their countless crimes against humanity/, on Putin…
And to destroy Russia on behalf of the western criminals…
And because they did not how to hung together some of them hung apart /Berezovskij/,
or were hanged…

These are genuine Russian jokes. However, you are 20 years too late: these jokes are from the 1990-s, when the West loved “liberal� reforms of drunk traitor Yeltsin. “Civilized world� also loved the looting of Russian state assets that enriched quite a few thieves, Russian as well as non-Russian (Browder is a good example of the latter).

I hate Zionists ( is generalizing OK in this case?) and I dont like being played for a fool. The two links provided in this passage which is pasted below are bogus. So how do I judge your article? If you think people won’t click on links to verify, you are an idiot.

The first link (Marc Rich) appears to be dead, but the second (Israeli-Russian) is working, and it does discuss Mark Rich. I do not vouch for the source (www.rys2sense.com/anti-neocons/) however.

I really gave Putin the benefit of the doubt over Litvinenko, but after the Skirpals you have to conclude that if he didn’t know about the poisonings it was because he didn’t want to know

I’m kind of surprised that there are still people out there that don’t see the Skirpals as an obvious false flag.

I personally believed that mainstream Litvinenko story from the press until the Skirpal fiasco… and a recent story raises my suspicions further: Tim Bell, of Bell Pottinger infamy… the PR firm that inflamed racial tensions in South Africa, was an adviser to Alexander Litvinenko. The iconic hospital photo of Litvinenko was his idea.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/06/25/the-reputation-laundering-firm-that-ruined-its-own-reputation

I’m also now extremely skeptical on the Viktor Yushchenko poisoning story.

OTOH, I never, ever seriously took the idea that the Moscow apartment building bombings were a false flag… but now I’m not so sure.

Hahahaha I agree, especially rich Russians are known paragons of understatement, modesty and frugality

Two New Russians walk into a restaurant. One asks the maitre’cl, “Did 1 have din- ner here last night?”
“Yes,” says the maitre’d.
“Did 1 spent $70,000?”
“Yes,” the maitre’d answers.
“Oh, what a relief. 1 was afraid 1 lost it”

”Georgi, great tie.”
”Yes, Ivan, I got it for $1,000 at the store over on Nevsky Prospekt”
”You fool, I know a store where you could have gotten it for $1,500.”

If you were to concentrate your reading as annamaria does on websites of the tinfoil hat brigade you wouldn’t write such boringly sensible stuff.

Also, Putin is waaaayyyy beyond rich.
The wealthiest and most powerful individual on the planet right now.

This statement shows that your ideas about finances come largely from kiddy cartoons. Any half-professional finance worker knows that it is virtually impossible to hide even a billion, let alone more. Considering how many parties would love to expose Putin’s riches, the fact that they did not produce anything except hot air says it all. Sapienti sat.

Berezovsky’s “suicide� was certainly a fake. Considering how readily Brits accepted this implausible version, they or someone who controls them had a hand in this murder. MI6, CIA, MOSSAD, or any combination of these outfits did it. I guess we won’t ever know who exactly: they and their puppet-masters have too much power.

Putin certainly doesn’t look bothered, and he isn’t. UK is way to insignificant to bother him. BTW, Russian traitors live in many countries. But they are murdered exclusively in the UK. If that does not raise any questions in your mind, I have a mountain to sell you.

BTW, giant oil and gas pipelines to China are not the only things Russia is building, by far. It just finished the bridge from Krasnodar region to Crimea, now the longest bridge in Europe. It built huge new airports in Simpheropol, Rostov, and several other cities (compare to never ending construction of the new Berlin airport, now dead in the water). It built quite a few major roads, power stations, huge LNG terminal in Yamal, etc. It is exporting not only more grain than any other country, but lots of farm machinery (just Google it). So, all I can say is that envy, especially bitter envy, is a bad feeling. Most Christians would consider it a sin.

At least Ryan Dawson offered some rational explanation to Litvinenko death, which certainly deviates from the MSM meme, sir Owen senescent mumbling, and the UK government silly insistence on “most likely” — in the absence of hard facts.
What’s your problem with Russian government? Was not the wholesale looting of the country by the likes of Berezovsky and Browder (and other persons of Jewish persuasion) enough for Russians to look with suspicion on the machinations of the ziocon-controlled US government and its poodle the UK government? The “poor victims of antisemitism” in Russia had helped themselves royally in the 90-s. Dawson articles mention some of the most spectacular deeds by the “most victimized” and the “most moral.” The deeds included murders (mostly arranged killings), grand thievery (in $billions), and the destruction of the Soviet industries.
One of the hilarious things about aliya to Israel is the sense of superiority of Russain Jews (thanks to their superior Soviet education, both general and professional) towards “others” in Israel. On a top of that, the former Soviet Jews prefer Germany to Israel as a country of residence: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3558327/Israels-anxiety-as-Jews-prefer-Germany.html “Germany’s Jewish community is once again being perceived as a threat. This time, however, that threat is seen not by the propagandists of Nazi Germany, but in Israel itself. In recent years, Jewish immigration to Israel – the country’s lifeblood – has been outpaced by that to Germany.”
“Jews from the former Soviet Union prefer Germany to the Jewish State:” https://www.haaretz.com/1.5471218
“Sixty years after the beginning of the “Final Solution,” Jews apparently feel better about living in Germany than in the Jewish state. … The Russian immigrants have changed the face of German Jewry, both qualitatively and quantitatively.”

You are aware of the fact that The Independent was sold to Alexander Lebedev in early 2010, right, and that he was interested in purchasing the paper even earlier than that (2009, see below)?

The story was published Friday 2 May 2008, and at that time The Independent was already losing lots of money and in financial difficulties, so I think it would not be unreasonable to assume that they ran that story in exchange for a financial lifeline or some other type of purchase/ownership agreement with Lebedev, who has connections to Putin and the Russian intelligence community (he is a “former” KGB officer): https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/alexander-lebedev-vladimir-putin-is-not-the-villain-it-s-the-west-s-banks-laundering-money-a3221091.html

By mid-2004, the newspaper was losing £5 million per year. A gradual improvement meant that by 2006, circulation was at a nine-year high.[12]

In November 2008, following further staff cuts, production was moved to Northcliffe House, in Kensington High Street, the headquarters of Associated Newspapers.[13] The two newspaper groups’ editorial, management and commercial operations remained separate, but they shared services including security, information technology, switchboard and payroll.[citation needed]

On 25 March 2010, Independent News & Media sold the newspaper to Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev for a nominal £1 fee and £9.25m over the next 10 months, choosing this option over closing The Independent and The Independent on Sunday, which would have cost £28m and £40m respectively, due to long-term contracts.[3][14] In 2009, Lebedev had bought a controlling stake in the London Evening Standard. Two weeks later, editor Roger Alton resigned.

– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Independent#Since_1990

In 2009 he entered into exclusive negotiations with Independent News & Media to buy the company’s British national newspapers, The Independent and Independent on Sunday. Before the purchase was completed, his representatives offered the editorship of The Independent to Rod Liddle, former editor of BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme.[11] The offer was withdrawn after Liddle’s putative appointment was opposed by the newspaper’s staff and by a campaign online.[12][13] On 25 March 2010, Lebedev bought The Independent and Independent on Sunday for £1.

– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Lebedev#Business_career

Better click on the link now before it finally gets memory-holed!

As long as Lebedev owns The Independent there is no risk of that story being memory-holed, in my opinion.

There were stories going around that Berezovsky was killed because he was negotiating with the Putin government to return to Russia. He knew too much so he was killed by British Intelligence/CIA/Mossad because he knew too much. I understand that Putin and Berezovsky were close when they were both working alongside Yeltzin.

Ten years ago, even a mainstream source like The Independent was once willing to contemplate alternative theories on Litvinenko’s death:

“Alexander poisoned himself while handling radioactive material. Epstein posits that Litvinenko was poisoned by accident – the post mortem, he says, would have determined whether he ingested the polonium-210 or inhaled it. Part of his thesis is that the isotope had been smuggled to London not to murder someone, but as part of an illegal nuclear transaction.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-litvinenko-files-was-he-really-murdered-819534.html

Better click on the link now before it finally gets memory-holed!

One thing you find out from reading about the private lives of super rich people is their constant concern to be very careful to do things in a cost effective way.

Hahahaha I agree, especially rich Russians are known paragons of understatement, modesty and frugality 😉

Also, Putin is waaaayyyy beyond rich.

The wealthiest and most powerful individual on the planet right now.

Plus, he enjoys playing mind games with people. He wanted to see Litvinenko suffer and die a slow, torturous death and have him know who had done it to him, not just simply kill him instantly.

Putin doesn’t even show peaches mercy hahahaha, which actually kind of backfired for him in the PR department:

Food fight in Russia as government bulldozes, burns illegal produce, meat imports

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s latest show of defiance against Western adversaries has deployed bulldozers, steamrollers and tractors to destroy hundreds of tons of illegally imported food in televised spectacles that some of his own countrymen are calling absurd and grotesque.

In a country where millions starved in the 1930s when the Soviet Union’s communist rulers forced collectivized agriculture on the peasantry, the Kremlin’s highly publicized enforcement of its year-old ban on European Union food imports is stirring protest among advocates of the poor and those with memories of Soviet-era shortages.

– http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-russia-food-destruction-controversy-20150814-story.html

I just saw this story after I did some more research on Dimtry Peskov’s wife https://www.unz.com/tsaker/no-fifth-column-in-the-kremlin-think-again/#comment-2396189 and it made me lol:

In July 2015, Peskov became engaged to the Olympic Champion ice dancer Tatiana Navka, with whom he has a daughter.[5] They married on August 1, 2015, after Peskov finalized the divorce with his second wife. During the wedding, Peskov was photographed wearing an exclusive $670,000 USD Richard Mille watch, greater than Peskov’s declared income for all his years of service as a state employee. When this fact was discovered, this caused a media reaction, and Peskov replied that Navka had paid for the watch.
[…]
vacationed recently with his new wife off the coast of the Italian island of Sardinia on a 350,000-euro-per-week yacht

– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Peskov#Personal_life

Panorama : Putin’s Secret Riches

Polonium is an important component: a trigger for nuclear bombs. Israel lacks production capability. Israel got caught smuggling nuclear triggers from US before.

Litvinenko converted to Islam weeks before the murder due to influence from his neighbor, friend and imam. He blackmailed Nevzlin. I think he had the Clearstream files of Stephen Curtis who died in a helicopter crash. Litvinenko always suspected Scaramella for the poisoning until Goldfarb put words in his mouth.

The Hasbara filth are busy on this one, I see.

Whole article about polonium with no mention of Arafat? Is it because some Russian team of scientists did not detect polonium in Arafat clothing and Ryan Dawson eats everything what comes from Moscow?

“…the war in Ukraine…”
Why do you care about Unz Review and the excellent analysts who publish here their excellent articles?
Your response’ bullet points had nothing to do with the main points of Dawson’s article.
In your response, you have carefully omitted all the most important facts related to Litvinenko case (considering the available evidence, particularly the evidence collected from a flight to and from Israel), as well as to the UK government irrational behavior re criminal Berezovsky.
Instead, you come up with the childish (and laughable) pondering on Skripals Affair (have you looked at the linked papers or you already knew the silliness of your opinions?) The pondering has also shown your “overly obvious” visceral irritation towards Russia, Russain people, and Russain president.

One of the reasons Philby defected was the KGB were worried that the Americans would kill him.
Litvinenko was a FSB defector, just like Skripal, that was enough for someone to try and kill them– by outrageously expensive means. Litvinenko’s death was so expensive he might as well have been burned on a bonfire of signed Picassos or thown into the sea attached to a half a ton of gold. One thing you find out from reading about the private lives of super rich people is their constant concern to be very careful to do things in a cost effective way.

For one, there is no motive, even with Litvinenko being a critic of Russia, he was no threat whatsoever to Putin.

There was a huge motive for Putin and the issue was intensely personal for him, I believe, especially since he had been cultivating a “macho man” image. Putin could not simply let these accusations pass unanswered.

Litvinenko accused Putin of being a pedophile.

Putin kisses a boy on stomach

IS PUTIN A PAEDOPHILE?

This Daily Beast article could be anti-Putin propaganda, but seems like a plausible explanation why Putin had such deep-seated animosity towards Alexander Litvinenko, and wanted to get rid of him:

“There was undoubtedly a personal dimension to the antagonism between Mr. Litvinenko on the one hand and President Putin on the other,� he wrote in his report. “Mr. Litvinenko made repeated highly personal attacks on President Putin culminating in the allegation of pedophillia in July 2006.�

The claim was made in an article on the Chechen separatist website Chechenpress shortly after Putin was filmed lifting the T-shirt and kissing the stomach of a young boy at the Kremlin.

Litvinenko claimed this display of affection was the first public sign of a secret that had long been known by some within the KGB. He said Putin had been denied a place in the foreign intelligence division as a young recruit “because, shortly before his graduation, his bosses learned that Putin was a pedophile.�

“Many years later, when Putin became the FSB director and was preparing for the presidency, he began to seek and destroy any compromising materials,� Litvinenko wrote. “Among other things, Putin found videotapes in the FSB Internal Security directorate, which showed him making sex with some underage boys.�

– https://www.unz.com/article/pizzagate/#comment-1690740