21 people
The investigation into the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal has widened, as police sealed off the graves of his wife, Liudmila, and son, Alexander, and confirmed that a total of 21 people had been treated as a result of the incident.
The police officer who was exposed to the nerve agent used on the Skripals, named on Thursday as DS Nick Bailey, remained in a serious but stable condition.
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Forensics officers began a major search for evidence at Skripal’s semi-detached house. They also cordoned off the graves in Salisbury cemetery where Liudmila and Alexander Skripal were interred in adjacent plots, and sealed off a garage and recovery service elsewhere in the city.
I wouldn’t want to be living in the other half of that semi.
Experts at the government’s laboratory at Porton Down have identified the poison used but are keeping shtum.
The use of a nerve toxin, usually only held in state military stockpiles, is being seen as a key indicator of possible Kremlin involvement. On Thursday, the Russian embassy in London sent a sarcastic tweet, saying of Skripal: “He was actually a British spy, working for MI6.”
Moscow has repeatedly denied it has anything to do with the attack, the same line used when the FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in 2006 with a radioactive cup of tea. A public inquiry a decade later ruled the Kremlin had ordered the hit.
I’m starting to think the Russian government is not a very benevolent outfit.
The Salisbury attack left Skripal and his daughter in a comatose condition last Sunday afternoon, on a bench in the Maltings shopping centre.
Detectives will be seeking to establish how the toxin was delivered – and, crucially, where. One source suggested that Bailey was exposed to the nerve agent from inside Skripal’s house and not in the city centre, as was previously thought.
It is understood that the cordon at the cemetery is in place primarily to keep media away from the graves of Liudmila Skripal, who died of cancer in 2012 aged 59, and Alexander Skripal, who died in March last year in St Petersburg, aged 43.
There was no sign of activity taking place on the site, but the family’s run of ominous bad luck is likely to prompt police to examine whether Liudmila and Alexander may have been victims of foul play.
Trump is wishing he had some of that stuff, whatever it is.
You mean, the stuff he is taking now is too weak tea? By all means deplete the stock then.
Too bad he missed the Mars orbit shot; there was a vacant seat in that Roadster, the fastest car in the world. Beep beep.
It’s time for some serious (non-military) action against Russia. I don’t understand why the UK isn’t sending the Russian ambassador and the entire embassy staff packing, designating Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism and invoking more serious trade sanctions.
I do, sadly, understand why America won’t be doing anything like that.
Screechy M – by imposing a lot of punitive measures on Russia the UK would be inviting retaliation from a very unscrupulous adversary. For every action there would be an unequal, disproportionate reaction. For example, if the UK curtailed Russian landing rights, Russia could ban British carriers from overflying Russia on their way to the Far East. Also, for various reasons, the UK is unlikely to get the support it needs from its allies. As one British Ambassador said back in the 80s when urging moderation: “never engage in a pissing competition with a skunk”. That said, the UK could do much, much more – for example by tightening up on Russian ownership of property in the UK, or making it harder for dodgy biznesmen to travel here.
Why use a military-grade chemical weapon—more or less declaring the hit to be an act of state—while maintaining the pretense that it wasn’t?
JtD: Because fuck us, that’s why. Why do gangsters pretend they’re peddling fire insurance?
JtD @4, Putin has no real cause, philosophy or set of policies that have bound his key supporters to him. I don’t mean the men and women on the street, they’ve been sold the MRGA coolaide and think it’s delicious, I mean those in the military, beuracracy and business that allowed him to come to power and have aided and abetted him. They’ve done it for money. That money is drying up as a result of a weak economy, sanctions and low oil prices. There have been open grumblings and leaks, defections even.
Such blatant killings as skripal’s send a message to those who are tempted to be disloyal. “I will get you and your family wherever you go and you will die horribly and I will do it with impunity.” For that message to have maximum chilling effect it must be obvious that Russia is the culprit, while at the same time lacking the level of evidence that creates real legal liability.