Russia highly likely to be behind poisoning of spy, says Theresa May

[shaaik]

Skripal suspects: 'We were just tourists in Salisbury'

Media caption"Our friends had been suggesting for a long time that we visit this wonderful town"
Two men named as suspects in the poisoning of a Russian ex-spy in the UK have said they were merely tourists.

The men, named as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, told the state-run RT channel they had travelled to Salisbury on the recommendation of friends.

The UK believes the men are Russian military intelligence officers who tried to kill Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury last March.

Downing Street dismissed the interview.

"The lies and blatant fabrications in this interview given to a Russian state-sponsored TV station are an insult to the public's intelligence," Prime Minister Theresa May's spokesman said.

On Wednesday Russian President Vladimir Putin said "there is nothing criminal about them" and called them "civilians".

What happened to the Skripals?
Skripal suspects interview: Key excerpts
What is the GRU?
The Skripals survived being poisoned by the nerve agent Novichok, but Dawn Sturgess - a woman not connected to the Russian events - died in July having been exposed to the same substance.

What do the two Russians say?
Appearing nervous and uncomfortable, the men confirmed their names as those announced by the UK investigators - Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov. "Those are our real names," they said.

RT is Russia's state-run international broadcaster, and the pair were interviewed by its chief editor, Margarita Simonyan. "Their passports match and the photos and the information from the British side shows it's these people," she said.

The men said they worked in the sports nutrition business and had travelled to London for a short holiday, fitting in a couple of day trips to Salisbury.


The British authorities released photos of the two men they suspected of carrying out the poisoning
"Our friends had been suggesting for a long time that we visit this wonderful town," Mr Petrov said.

They said they only stayed an hour in Salisbury on Saturday 3 March because of the snowy weather conditions, but returned on Sunday 4 March to visit the sights.

The two men admitted they may have passed Mr Skripal's house by chance "but we don't know where it is located," Mr Petrov said.

When asked about Novichok, they emphatically denied carrying it, or the modified Nina Ricci perfume bottle which UK investigators say contained the substance.

The counterfeit perfume bottle recovered from Mr Rowley's home and the box police say it came in
"For normal blokes, to be carrying women's perfume with us, isn't that silly?" Mr Boshirov asked.

The two men told RT their lives had been "turned upside down" by the allegations. "We're afraid to go out, we fear for ourselves, our lives and lives of our loved ones," said Mr Boshirov.

The BBC's Sarah Rainsford in Moscow described the interview as carefully choreographed and bizarre, pointing out that in tone and content it matched the whole Russian response to the case - flat denial mixed with mockery.

What are the UK allegations?
The British police believe the men to be officers of Russian military intelligence, GRU, who may have travelled on false passports to London from Moscow in March.


Media captionOn the trail of Russians Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, who UK police say carried out a nerve agent attack in Salisbury in March 2018
They say the purpose of the men's visit to Salisbury on 3 March was reconnaissance, and on 4 March they returned to apply Novichok to the Skripals' front door.

The UK Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) says there is enough evidence to convict the two men, although it is not applying to Russia for their extradition because Russia does not extradite its own nationals.

However, a European Arrest Warrant has been obtained in case they travel to the EU, and UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid has warned that the men will be caught and prosecuted if they ever step out of Russia.

Answers, but still questions
BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera

The appearance of the two men looks like the next step in the struggle between London and Moscow to convince their own publics and those around the world about their respective cases.

The amount of detail put out by British police last week, and the direct accusation that the men were officers in Russian military intelligence, was something the Kremlin will not have wanted to go unchallenged.

And the Russian government will be hoping this interview will generate sympathy at home for what are said to be a pair of sports nutrition salesmen who wanted to see a beautiful English cathedral with its 123-metre spire, but who instead have found themselves accused of being assassins.

But the risk for Russia is that the interview raises more questions than it answers and offers more details for sceptics to unpick and challenge.

How plausible are the men generally and specifically about their reasons for visiting Salisbury? How plausible is their account of their movements around the town when compared to the CCTV? And given the UK has suggested the names they use are pseudonyms, how convincing are their stories about who they are, including their past, their jobs and their travel?

What happened when
At around 15:00 GMT on Friday 2 March, the two men arrived at Gatwick Airport
Police say they travelled to London Victoria at 17:40 GMT, and were at Waterloo Station between 18:00 and 19:00 GMT before travelling to their London hotel
At 11:45 GMT on Saturday 3 March, they took a train from Waterloo Station to Salisbury
CCTV footage shows the men in Salisbury around 14:25 GMT
The men say they spent less than an hour in Salisbury, deciding against seeing Stonehenge, Old Sarum and Salisbury Cathedral because of "muddy slush everywhere"
CCTV footage shows the men taking a train back to London at 16:11 GMT
On Sunday 4 March, CCTV cameras filmed the men arriving at Salisbury train station at 11:48 GMT
Police say they were then seen on CCTV near the home of Sergei Skripal at 11:58 GMT
The men say they then visited Salisbury Cathedral
CCTV footage shows the men leaving Salisbury station at 13:50 GMT
At 19:28 GMT, the men were at Heathrow Airport for an Aeroflot flight to Moscow

What happened to the Skripals?
Yulia Skripal flew in to the UK from Russia on Saturday 3 March to visit her father, Sergei Skripal, a former Russian double agent who was living in Salisbury.

They had been for lunch at a restaurant in central Salisbury on 4 March when they were found "in an extremely serious condition" on a bench outside the restaurant.

They spent weeks in intensive care in hospital before recovering. Ms Skripal was discharged from hospital on 9 April and her father on 18 May. They are both now in a secure location.

Why Novichok stays deadly for so long

UK police are linking the attack to a separate Novichok poisoning on 30 June, when Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley fell ill at a house in Amesbury, about 13km (eight miles) away.

Police said they were exposed after handling what they believed to be perfume.

Ms Sturgess died in hospital on 8 July.


https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45509697

 

[Asim_khan]

I believe them.

Most others wouldn't, but if you know the exact height of a 123m spire, you're not guilty in my eyes.

 

[Robert]

I believe them.

Most others wouldn't, but if you know the exact height of a 123m spire, you're not guilty in my eyes.

Sure, nobody in Russia knows how to use Wikipedia.

 

[MenInG]

Sitting at a table in a central London bar, one of two men, who was expensively dressed with a big gold watch on his wrist, asked the other if he would like some of the tea, which he had bought earlier.

He accepted the offer and took a couple of sips, which tasted odd, and afterwards they were joined by another man with a sombre demeanour and the conversation turned to a meeting the group were due to have the next day with an international risk management company in the capital.

Soon, the expensively dressed man's family arrived and he said he had to leave - his group was due to watch a football match between Arsenal and CSKA Moscow that evening.

The man who sipped the odd tasting tea was former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko

Alexander Litvinenko before he fell sick from radiation poisoning and died. Pic: Tony Larkin/Shutterstock

Just over three weeks after the meeting at the Pine Bar at the Millennium Hotel, he was dead, poisoned by radioactive polonium.

What was described as a nuclear attack on British soil unleashed an international scandal, the consequences of which are still reverberating today.

In 2016, a 10-year UK public enquiry concluded that in all probability the two men he met, Andrey Lugavoy and Dmitri Kovtun, were Russian agents and in all likelihood assassinated Mr Litvinenko with the knowledge of Russian President, Vladimir Putin.

In doing so they effectively sent a clear message to anyone who fancied following Mr Litvinenko and defecting to the West – they would be tracked down and killed using the most unpleasant poisons the Soviets had ever managed to create.

Both men and Russia have always denied culpability.

But the poisoning left hundreds of others affected – also contaminated by the highly radioactive polonium that had been used in the killing.

Among those also left reeling from the effects of the deadly substance was Derek Conlon, a piano player in the bar of the Millennium Hotel, whose life, by chance, became inextricably linked to that of Mr Litvinenko and whose story is now being told in a four-part Sky News podcast starting on Monday called Polonium and the Piano Player.

The placing into the tea pot of the liquid that ended the Russian's life badly affected Mr Conlon and impacted hundreds more. It marked the end of a journey that is believed to have started in one of the most secretive places in Russia.

The poison's arrival in London then set off a chain reaction that ended with dozens of locations being sealed off in one of the biggest health emergencies the capital has ever seen, as scientists in protective suits were sent in to conduct tests for alpha particle emissions in restaurants, bars, bus stops and all over one of the busiest cities in the world.

https://news.sky.com/story/the-polo...l-alexander-litvinenko-get-to-the-uk-12027427

 

[MenInG]

Russian hackers stole secret trade deal papers from the email account of former cabinet minister Liam Fox, according to Reuters.

The news agency said Mr Fox's account was broken into multiple times between 12 July and 2 October 2019 - in the run up to last year's general election.

It said a "spear phishing" message was used, which tricks the target into handing over their password and login details.

Quoting unnamed sources, Reuters reported officials did not say which group was responsible but did insist the attack "bore the hallmarks of a state-backed operation".

The agency added it was unclear which of Mr Fox's email accounts was breached, and if the key briefings were stolen before he stood down as international trade secretary on 24 July.

Just weeks ago the UK government announced it had found Russian groups were responsible for promoting the leaked documents and that a criminal investigation had been opened.

The papers were posted online by an anonymous internet user ahead of December's election - but became a major debating point when they were later publicised by then-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

He claimed they showed evidence the NHS would be "on the table" in talks on a post-Brexit trade deal with Donald Trump.

A Cabinet office spokesperson said on Monday: "There is an ongoing criminal investigation into how the documents were acquired, and it would be inappropriate to comment further at this point.

"But as you would expect, the Government has very robust systems in place to protect the IT systems of officials and staff."

And a National Centre for Cyber Security spokesperson said it "works closely with political parties, local authorities and MPs, who are offered access to the best cyber security guidance and support" but would not comment further.

Sky News' defence and security correspondent Alistair Bunkall said: "We knew the trade documents had been distributed by a Russian group over various social media platforms but until now we weren't sure how they'd been obtained.

"I understand Mr Fox's account was identified some time ago by the team investigating the hack and they had to get his permission before accessing his system to investigate further."

A major long-awaited report by parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee found in July concerns Moscow tried to meddle in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum were "credible", marking "the first post-Soviet Russian interference in a Western democratic process".

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied allegations of election meddling in the UK, US, France and other countries in the past.

Russia's foreign ministry described accusations last month by the UK, US and Canada that cyber spies based in the country tried to steal research into coronavirus vaccines and treatments as "foggy and contradictory".

https://news.sky.com/story/russian-...rom-email-account-of-liam-fox-report-12041778

 

[MenInG]

Two Russian men suspected of carrying out the Salisbury poisoning of Sergei Skripal in 2018 are being linked to an explosion at an arms depot in the Czech Republic four years earlier.

Czech police issued photos of Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, who they say were in the country at the time of the blast, which killed two people.

The Czech Republic has expelled 18 Russian diplomats in retaliation.

A senior Russian parliamentarian on Saturday called the claim absurd.

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said the country had to react to revelations tying the blast to Russia's military intelligence service, the GRU.

In a Saturday evening press conference, Mr Babis said the 18 diplomats who had been identified as working for Russia's intelligence services would have 48 hours to leave the country.

"There is a reasonable suspicion that Russian secret agents of the GRU service were involved in the 2014 explosions of an ammunition dump in the Czech village of Vrbětice," he said.

At the same time, police issued a request for assistance in searching for two individuals who it said were in the country between 11 October and 16 October 2014, first in Prague and then the area where the arms depot is located.

Czech police are looking for suspects using the identities Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov in connection with the explosion.

These are the same names used by two Russian intelligence officers the UK says carried out the poisoning in Salisbury, Wiltshire in 2018.

Pictures of them issued by Czech police match those put out by UK police.

After Salisbury, the two men were identified as Alexander Mishkin and Anatoliy Chepiga and subsequently appeared on Russian TV to claim they were sports nutritionists who had visited Salisbury to see the cathedral spire.

However, UK authorities said they were members of the GRU and had smeared a nerve agent, Novichok, on a door handle belonging to Mr Skripal, a former GRU officer.

Mr Skripal and his daughter fell ill but recovered.

A local woman, Dawn Sturgress, died months later after being poisoned by nerve agent in a discarded perfume bottle.

"We are in a situation similar to that in Britain following the attempted poisoning in Salisbury in 2018," Czech Interior Minister and Foreign Minister Jan Hamáček said when announcing the results of the investigation on Saturday night.

Russia responded by saying that its constitution does not allow its citizens to be extradited.

Russian politician Vladimir Dzhabarov said the Czech Republic's claims were absurd and that the Russian reaction to the expulsion of its diplomats should be proportionate, the Interfax news agency reported.

The US said it was expelling 10 diplomats from the Russian Embassy in Washington DC on Thursday in response to a cyber-attack as well as other Russian activities. Moscow followed by saying 10 US diplomats would also have to leave.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-56790053

 

[Last Monetarist]

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/czechs-discuss-alleged-russian-link-2014-blast-with-eu-2021-04-18/

Moscow reacted furiously on Sunday to Czech accusations that two Russian spies accused of a nerve agent poisoning in Britain in 2018 were behind an explosion at a Czech ammunition dump four years earlier, which killed two people.

Prague on Saturday expelled no fewer than 18 Russian diplomats, prompting Russia's Foreign Ministry to vow on Sunday to "force the authors of this provocation to fully understand their responsibility for destroying the foundation of normal ties between our countries".

The Czech Republic said it had informed NATO and European Union allies that it suspected Russia of causing the blast, and European Union foreign ministers were set to discuss the matter at their meeting on Monday.

The row is the biggest between Prague and Moscow since the end of decades of Soviet domination of eastern Europe in 1989.

It also adds to growing tensions between Russia and the West in general, raised in part by Russia's military build-up on its Western borders and in Crimea, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014, after a surge in fighting between government and pro-Russian forces in Ukraine's east.

Russia said Prague's accusations were absurd as it had previously blamed the blast at Vrbetice, 300 km (210 miles) east of the capital, on the depot's owners.

It called the expulsions "the continuation of a series of anti-Russian actions undertaken by the Czech Republic in recent years", accusing Prague of "striving to please the United States against the backdrop of recent U.S. sanctions against Russia". Jan Hamacek, the Czech interior and acting foreign minister, said investigators believed the blast had been intended to occur in an arms shipment after it left the depot, probably headed for Bulgaria.

Czech police said they were looking for two men who travelled to the Czech Republic days before the blast under the names Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov.

Those names were the aliases used by the two Russian GRU military intelligence officers wanted by Britain for the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok in the English city of Salisbury in 2018. The Skripals survived, but a member of the public died.

The Kremlin denied involvement in that incident, and the attackers remain at large. "Police knew about the two people from the beginning," Hamacek said, "but only found out when the Salisbury attack happened that they are members of the GRU, that Unit 29155."

Hamacek said Prague would ask Moscow for assistance in questioning them, but did not expect it to cooperate. The Czech investigative weekly Respekt reported on Saturday that according to police investigators, the arms shipment was destined for a Bulgarian trader believed to be supplying Ukraine at a time when Russian-backed separatists were fighting government forces in eastern Ukraine.

Respekt and Czech public radio named a Bulgarian arms dealer, a man whom Bulgarian prosecutors said Russian agents had tried and failed to kill in 2015.

The news website Seznamzpravy.cz said the arms shipment may also have been destined for Syrian rebels. British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab tweeted that the Czechs "have exposed the lengths that the GRU will go to in their attempts to conduct dangerous and malign operations".

A NATO official said the alliance would support the Czech Republic as it investigated Russia's "malign activities", which were part of a pattern of "dangerous behaviour".

"Those responsible must be brought to justice," added the official, who declined to be named.

Washington also offered Prague its support.

The United States imposed sanctions against Russia on Thursday for interfering in last year's U.S. election, cyber hacking, bullying Ukraine and other actions, prompting Moscow to retaliate.

On Sunday, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Washington had told Moscow "there will be consequences" if Alexei Navalny, the opposition figurehead who almost died last year after being given a toxin that Western experts say was Novichok, dies in prison, where he is on hunger strike. The 2014 incident has resurfaced at an awkward time for Prague and Moscow.

The Czech Republic is planning to put the construction of a new nuclear power plant at its Dukovany complex out to tender.

Security services have demanded that Russia's Rosatom be excluded as a security risk, while President Milos Zeman and other senior officials have been putting Russia's case.

In a text message, Industry Minister Karel Havlicek, who was previously in favour of including Russia, told Reuters: "The probability that Rosatom will participate in the expansion of Dukovany is very low."

 

[Robert]

The very impressive Lisa Nandy tearing into Raab regarding Salisbury, Navalny, and Russian dark money funding the Tories.

This government is following the Putin model into authoritarian kleptocracy wrapped in nationalism.

 

[James]

Looking back, Salisbury seems to be the moment when the previously impressive Jeremy Corbyn started to lose his way as Labour leader. After he took such a weak and ambivalent stance towards Russia in full view of the public, the British electorate never forgave him.

 

[Robert]

Looking back, Salisbury seems to be the moment when the previously impressive Jeremy Corbyn started to lose his way as Labour leader. After he took such a weak and ambivalent stance towards Russia in full view of the public, the British electorate never forgave him.

Totally agree. In that moment it became clear that he would not defend his country. His juvenile willingness to believe the Russians instead of MI5 sunk him. Like a contrary teenager disagreeing with parents for the sake of it.

 

[Technics 1210]

Looking back, Salisbury seems to be the moment when the previously impressive Jeremy Corbyn started to lose his way as Labour leader. After he took such a weak and ambivalent stance towards Russia in full view of the public, the British electorate never forgave him.

Yet the public forgave Blair for taking us into an illegal war and Labour won the GE twice after.

We all know why the establishment was against JC.

 

[Robert]

Yet the public forgave Blair for taking us into an illegal war and Labour won the GE twice after.

We all know why the establishment was against JC.

Well, Blair at least showed strength in doing so. Strength in the wrong cause, but strength nonetheless.

Corbyn showed weakness - or at best a juvenile contrarianism unbefitting a man of 70. If he would instinctively reject the advice of our excellent security services, he would not stand up to our potential enemies. The voters saw that.

 

[Technics 1210]

Well, Blair at least showed strength in doing so. Strength in the wrong cause, but strength nonetheless.

Corbyn showed weakness - or at best a juvenile contrarianism unbefitting a man of 70. If he would instinctively reject the advice of our excellent security services, he would not stand up to our potential enemies. The voters saw that.

Corbyn was a man of principle and stuck to his principles. This is a character of strength. Unlike Blair - who also rejected the advice of our excellent security service - but also sold his principles for a paltry price to Bush. Weak to the core, and untrustworthy.

 

[James]

Jeremy arguably didn’t stick to his principles in the end, hence bottling his natural position on Brexit in 2019 and Labour consequently losing voters from both their Remain and their Leave camps.