Pete, wasn't it your contention that Russia (Putin specifically because VERY little happens in Russia without his approval) may have nothing to do with this???
Pete, wasn't it your contention that Russia (Putin specifically because VERY little happens in Russia without his approval) may have nothing to do with this???
Bo-4 (03-13-2018)
Britain expels 23 Russian diplomats over nerve attack on ex-spy
Britain is to kick out 23 Russian diplomats, the biggest such expulsion since the Cold War, over a chemical attack on a former Russian double agent in England that Prime Minister Theresa May blamed on Moscow.
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Russia stockpiling nerve agent...
Spy poisoning: Russia stockpiling nerve agent, says Johnson
18 Mar.`18 - Russia has been stockpiling the nerve agent used in the attack on an ex-spy and his daughter over the last decade, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson says.
He also dismissed a suggestion by Russia's EU ambassador that the agent might have come from a UK laboratory. Vladimir Chizhov had said the Porton Down lab in Wiltshire may have been the source of the substance. Sergei and Yulia Skripal remain critically ill in hospital after being exposed to the substance in Salisbury. They were found slumped on a bench in the Wiltshire city on 4 March. Prime Minister Theresa May has said Russia is "culpable" for the attack. Unconfirmed reports from the US suggest that the nerve agent used may have been introduced into the ventilation system of a car belonging to Mr Skripal. Experts from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) will arrive in the UK on Monday to test samples of the chemical. The results are expected to take a "minimum of two weeks", the Foreign Office said.
UK Prime Minister Theresa May told MPs that Porton Down - Britain's military research base - identified the substance used as being part of a group of military-grade nerve agents known as Novichok developed by the Soviet Union. Mr Johnson told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show: "We actually have evidence within the last 10 years that Russia has not only been investigating the delivery of nerve agents for the purposes of assassination, but has also been creating and stockpiling Novichok." He said Russia's reaction to the incident "was not the response of a country that really believes itself to be innocent". Mr Chizhov, also speaking to the Marr Show, said Russia had "nothing to do" with the poisoning of Mr Skripal and his daughter Yulia. He said Russia did not stockpile the poison and that the Porton Down lab was only eight miles (12km) from the city.
Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, are in a critical condition in hospital
When asked how the nerve agent came to be used in Salisbury, he said: "When you have a nerve agent or whatever, you check it against certain samples that you retain in your laboratories. "And Porton Down, as we now all know, is the largest military facility in the United Kingdom that has been dealing with chemical weapons research. But pressed on whether he was suggesting Porton Down was "responsible" for the nerve agent in the attack, Mr Chizhov said: "I don't know. I don't have any evidence of anything having been used." He said a number of scientists who claim to be responsible for creating some nerve agents "have been whisked out of Russia and are currently residing in the United Kingdom" but no stockpiles of chemical weapons had left the country after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He added that there were "no stockpiles whatsoever" of nerve agents left in Russia.
Salisbury MP John Glen tweeted that suggestions Porton Down was the source of the nerve agent were "outrageous". Mr Chizhov's comments come after a Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman said the UK was one of the most likely sources of the nerve agent, along with the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Sweden or possibly the United States. Maria Zakharova said a large number of ex-Soviet scientists had gone to live in the West, "taking with them the technologies that they were working on". Czech foreign minister Martin Stropnicky said the claims were "unsubstantiated" and "a classic way of manipulating information in the public space", while Sweden also "forcefully" rejected the suggestion. Chemist Vil Mirzayanov, who revealed the existence of Novichok in the 1990s and later defected to the United States, said he was convinced Russia created the substance used in the attack. He told the BBC: "Russia is the country that invented it, has the experience, turned it into a weapon. This is the country that has fully mastered the cycle."
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