Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday March 06 2018, @11:05AM   Printer-friendly
from the did-he-expose-himself? dept.

A retired Russian military intelligence officer has fallen ill in England after exposure to an unknown substance. Does that sound familiar?

A man identified by local news reports as a retired Russian military intelligence officer who once spied for Britain is critically ill at a British hospital, and the authorities were investigating his "exposure to an unknown substance."

According to several reports, the man, found unconscious on a bench in the city of Salisbury, is Sergei V. Skripal, 66. He was once jailed by Moscow, then settled in Britain after an exchange of spies between the United States and Russia in 2010.

The British police have not publicly identified the man in the hospital or a 33-year-old woman who fell sick with him at a shopping mall called the Maltings.

The authorities have, however, released enough detail about what they called a "major incident" to draw some comparisons, however premature, to the case of Alexander V. Litvinenko, a former Russian spy who was poisoned in London in 2006.

Also at BBC and Reuters.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: -1, Troll) by cocaine overdose on Tuesday March 06 2018, @12:46PM (16 children)

    England sure is getting a lot of poisoned Russian spies. Where are the Russian Poisoned American Russian spies? And the Russian Poisoned Chinese Russian Spies? What about Russian Poisoned Ukranian Russian Spies? Knowing England's history in WWII, it looks like MI6 has learned well from Churchill and American Universities. They're now crying rape after engaging in consensual homosexual intercourse, but not getting a reach-around from Russian poisoned Russian spies.

    Or they weren't told not to drink the tap water.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   -2  
       Troll=3, Interesting=1, Total=4
    Extra 'Troll' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   -1  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @01:09PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @01:09PM (#648480)

    OTOH finding somebody in UK is easier.

    I agree with you, this does not seem the right moment for russkies to take revenge on a minor defector. Being chess playing russkies, though, means that being too obvious is their alibi for performing obvious things, so I would say p=.5

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday March 06 2018, @06:30PM (3 children)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday March 06 2018, @06:30PM (#648602) Journal

      If the minor unimportant guy is worth poisoning, there must be a reason why.

      Why would someone take out such an unimportant pawn?

      (and don't say to make more space on the bored)

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Hartree on Tuesday March 06 2018, @07:38PM (1 child)

        by Hartree (195) on Tuesday March 06 2018, @07:38PM (#648631)

        It may be a reminder to the other Russian expats living in the UK that the Russian government still can get to them, so they better stay quiet.

        • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday March 06 2018, @07:57PM

          by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday March 06 2018, @07:57PM (#648649) Journal

          . . . or realize there is a price to pay for not being quiet but being known for speaking out.

          --
          People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by legont on Tuesday March 06 2018, @08:00PM

        by legont (4179) on Tuesday March 06 2018, @08:00PM (#648651)

        Reportedly, there were 300 people on the spy list that he sold to MI6 for $100,000. They are probably tough people who have many tough friends some of which are quite rich. Any one of them could execute the revenge. Seems to me more likely scenario than an "official" order.

        --
        "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
  • (Score: 1, Funny) by VLM on Tuesday March 06 2018, @02:01PM (4 children)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday March 06 2018, @02:01PM (#648493)

    Likely something like Antifa-UK doesn't think retired Russian spies are left wing enough. A commie in the 70s is a fascist today, and all that.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Revek on Tuesday March 06 2018, @02:35PM (3 children)

      by Revek (5022) on Tuesday March 06 2018, @02:35PM (#648506)

      Its funny how much power you attribute to the anti fa movement. I see them much as I see trumps chumps. Largely under educated and completely impotent.

      --
      This page was generated by a Swarm of Roaming Elephants
      • (Score: 2, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday March 06 2018, @07:01PM

        by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Tuesday March 06 2018, @07:01PM (#648613) Homepage Journal

        We're having so many problems with our Alt-left and with Black Identity Extremists, the BIE. Look at what they did at my inauguration. Look at what they did in Charlottesville. And it's very easy to get Viagra these days. Very easy. You know about Viagra, right?

      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday March 06 2018, @08:43PM (1 child)

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday March 06 2018, @08:43PM (#648671)

        The only modifier I didn't get was funny, which was what I was aiming for, oh well. Modern leftists have no sense of humor. No, I don't seriously think UK-antifa is assassinating retired USSR spies for not being far enough left, but it sounded funny to me at a moment of low caffeine intake.

        • (Score: 2) by number6x on Tuesday March 06 2018, @09:03PM

          by number6x (903) on Tuesday March 06 2018, @09:03PM (#648691)

          It was funny, but in a dry, British-humour kind of way.

          Too subtle for the people with mod points

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday March 06 2018, @02:22PM (4 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday March 06 2018, @02:22PM (#648498) Journal

    UK and London in particular are top destinations for Russian expats.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russians_in_the_United_Kingdom [wikipedia.org]
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/10330921/Meet-the-Russians-People-think-Im-here-to-marry-a-rich-foreigner.html [telegraph.co.uk]
    https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/may/09/rich-russians-buying-london-property-real-estate [theguardian.com]
    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ppzydk/russians-in-v13n4 [vice.com]

    Maybe also see BBC's Rich, Russian and Living in London.

    As for the poisonings, it may be easier for Russians to get that stuff into the UK instead of say, the U.S. But it remains to be seen whether something as exotic as polonium was used on this guy.

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 0, Troll) by cocaine overdose on Tuesday March 06 2018, @03:05PM (2 children)

      I can attest to this. Londongrad is to Russians what America is to Americans, from all of the opinions I've heard.

      On the poisonings, I also agree. It came to mind that the UK is much closer to Russia than the US, and may be easier to "sneak" -- or waltz in, looking at their travel policies -- in illicit activities. The bigger problem here, is that these poisonings are like a proto-"Russia rigged the elections." The validity is in question, because of the very overt bias. There is little to be surmised from this, besides maybe someone somewhere wants it to look like Russia is poisoning spies. Much less if these poisonings happened at all or that the UK didn't poison these agents themselves. Not without a very lucrative "keep your mouth shut" deal, of course.

      • (Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday March 06 2018, @08:04PM (1 child)

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday March 06 2018, @08:04PM (#648654) Journal

        Litvinenko was a particular brazen killing:

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko [wikipedia.org]

        Detectives traced three distinct polonium trails in and out of London, at three different dates, which according to the investigation suggests Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun made two failed attempts to administer polonium to Litvinenko before the final and successful one. The first attempt took place on 16 October 2006, when radioactive traces were found in all places visited by the FSB operatives before and after their meeting with Litvinenko. They administered the poison to his tea, but he did not drink it.

        [...] As production of polonium-210 was discontinued in most countries in late 2000s, all of the world's legal polonium-210 (210Po) production occurs in Russia in RBMK reactors. About 85 grams (450,000 Ci) are produced by Russia annually for research and industrial purposes. According to Sergei Kiriyenko, the head of Russia's state atomic energy agency, RosAtom, around 0.8 grams per year is exported to U.S. companies through a single authorized supplier.

        [...]

        The Po-210 used to poison Mr Litvinenko was made at the Avangard facility in Sarov, Russia. One of the isotope-producing reactors at the Mayak facility in Ozersk, Russia, was used or the initial irradiation of bismuth. In my opinion, the Russian state or its agents were responsible for the poisoning.

        There's a bit of Occam's razor involved here. Russia has shown itself to assassinate certain Russians within and outside its borders, especially critics of Putin (not sure if that applies to this man, although by spying for a foreign power might be the one worse thing you can do). I guess we'll know more once it's announced what substance was used in this case.

        --
        [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
        • (Score: 2, Informative) by cocaine overdose on Tuesday March 06 2018, @09:12PM

          Yes, and that's what strikes me as off. One off-hand theory is that Kovton and Lugovoy were unsuspecting vectors, and not the masterminds, or even pawns, of the assassination. That is, after you throw out much of that Wikipedia page, because the sources are not good. There are numerous (~21) references to BBC. Those referenced articles themselves, have no references. The same for the Telegraph articles (~10), one important one being the waiter's (Norberto Andrade) first-hand account. His words: "when I was delivering gin and tonic to the table, I was obstructed. I couldn't see what was happening, but it seemed very deliberate to create a distraction. It made it difficult to put the drink down." Despite the lack of objective substance -- as Andrade himself seems to be the victim of memory bias/contamination, speaking of "I think the polonium was sprayed into the teapot. There was contamination found on the picture," which makes it seem like he's rationalized his memories to be inline with the current media -- this story was repeated by almost all major news agencies at that time. The referenced article did not have any substantive explanations or references.

          The same can be said for the medical evidence, of which I have yet to find any references for. I'm not specialized in the specifics needed to discern whether he was poisoned by Po-210, but I can see nothing but hearsay in the Wikipedia article. A reference, even if in unintelligible jargon, of testing methods and results would be better than quoting a book by two KGB dissidents. For the health references, it's all news sources. 11 articles from the Guardian, 3 from CNN, and many from smaller groups. Hell, just about the entire "Polonium Trial" section is from a memoir -- by Litvineko and another Putin dissident.

          There are no official sources with evidence, it's all just one big hallway with people yelling at the top of their lungs and everything echoing off the walls. The only real source is from an official inquiry conducted by a High Court Judge.[0] Within which there is second-hand reference to evidence. Notably, the key determinant of determining that Po-210 was involved -- involved in the scenes, not Litvineko's body, as it was pointed out.. "A1 stated that in the light of laboratory tests using both alpha and gamma spectrometry, she was absolutely confident in the conclusion that the alpha radiation discovered at the multiple scenes had been caused by polonium 210," but the source for this is dead. I'm not knowledgeable in spectrometry, but evidence would have been more appreciated, and carried more weight, than an anonymous "I'm confident it's Po-210." Which coincides well with the judge's final statement of "I am sure that Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun placed the polonium 210 in the teapot at the Pine Bar on 1 November 2006," which seems to based solely on the closing statement of the lawyer representing the Metropolitan Police Service, and not the actual officers doing the investigation.

          I will add that I didn't read the entire thing. But from these points above, I will conclude that it is an entire shitshow and on par with "Russia hacked the elections."

          [0]http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090753/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/files/Litvinenko-Inquiry-Report-web-version.pdf

    • (Score: 2) by canopic jug on Thursday March 08 2018, @08:29AM

      by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Thursday March 08 2018, @08:29AM (#649401) Journal

      As for the poisonings, it may be easier for Russians to get that stuff into the UK instead of say, the U.S.

      It turns out to have been a nerve agent [nytimes.com]. Bug spray for humans. Apparently the UK even has large quantities of nerve agents in storage [craigmurray.org.uk]. So the substance used on him is unlikely to give much of a clue as to who did it.

      --
      Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
  • (Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday March 06 2018, @07:12PM

    by sjames (2882) on Tuesday March 06 2018, @07:12PM (#648617) Journal

    The Chinese don't admit it. There's way too much going on in Ukraine now for a poisoned spy to be notable. In America, they just assume the spy is yet another person who couldn't afford to go to the doctor so the poison isn't diagnosed.