Gigabit wrote:I really must go to bed but interesting article from the FT.
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https://www.ft.com/content/f7619e96-3cc ... 94fa33a81e
Last month, a High Court judge in London said it was “unclear” whether the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, would ever recover from being poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent.
But on Tuesday, the hospital in Salisbury where the pair have been receiving treatment since they first fell ill on a park bench more than five weeks ago confirmed that Ms Skripal had been discharged. The hospital’s medical director said Mr Skripal is likely to be released “in due course”.
Their recovery is the latest twist in a story that has plunged relations between Russia and the west into their biggest freeze since the end of the cold war, sparking tit-for-tat spy expulsions and a wave of claims and counter claims between Moscow and London.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is expected to deliver its independent assessment as soon as Wednesday of the UK’s claim that the nerve agent used in the attack was from the novichok group of chemical weapons that were developed by the Soviet Union.
The OPCW’s verdict will be seen as a vital moment for the UK government, as it seeks to repudiate claims from Moscow that Britain has no evidence to blame Russia for the attack.
Ms Skripal’s release from hospital nevertheless poses difficult questions for the UK authorities, including how to keep the pair secure as investigators race to identify the individuals who might have targeted them.
Security officials are hopeful that despite being heavily sedated for more than a month, the Skripals may be able to share crucial evidence that will aid in their investigation.
Officials said Ms Skripal’s status as both a witness and a victim meant it was the police’s responsibility to keep her safe now that she has been discharged from hospital.
The Metropolitan Police’s counter terrorism unit declined to comment. The Home Office also declined to comment on Russian media reports that Ms Skripal had already applied for asylum in the UK. There have also been reports that security services in the UK are exploring whether the pair could be resettled in the US.
One former security official said MI6 would wait to see how Mr Skripal recovered before deciding their next steps. “It’s his choice,” the former official said. “They can’t resettle one without the other.”
Ms Skripal’s fate may also hinge on whether she wants to return to Russia. Her cousin, Victoria Skripal, has told Russian media that she wants to return home, while the Russian embassy in London has requested to see her.
Following the news of Ms Skripal’s release from hospital, the embassy posted a barrage of tweets again attacking the UK’s handling of the affair.
“We congratulate Yulia Skripal on her recovery,” the embassy tweeted. “Yet we need urgent proof that what is being done to her is done on her own free will.”
In a later statement, the embassy said any attempt to resettle the Skripals in the US or with any of the UK’s other close intelligence allies would be a “gross violation of international law”, adding that the world “will have every reason to see this as an abduction”.
UK government and security officials said the comments were another example of Russia’s attempts to distract and deflect attention from its role in the Salisbury attack.
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The Skripals’ return to health has surprised some officials and chemical weapons experts who just two weeks ago had feared the worst. But it remains unclear what the long-term effects of their poisoning may be.
“They may have psychological problems,” said Alastair Hay, a chemical weapons specialist from Leeds university. “People exposed to nerve agents suffer post-traumatic stress disorder and can get insomnia. But as long as there has been no damage to the brain from oxygen starvation then their cognitive function should be fine.”
UK security officials say the way that the Skripals were exposed to the poison may explain their relatively rapid return to health.
Delivery via an aerosol spray or through ingestion would have almost certainly killed them, according to one UK security official. But police believe the Skripals came into contact with the nerve agent through a gel smeared on the handle of the front door to Mr Skripal’s house.
Absorption through the skin takes much longer and might have allowed the Skripals crucial time to metabolise the poison, the official said.
Outlining the treatment that the pair had received on Tuesday, Dr Christine Blanshard, medical director of Salisbury Hospital, said the pair had “responded exceptionally”.
“Our job is to stabilise them, ensuring they can breathe and that blood can continue to circulate,” said Dr Blanshard. “We then needed to use a variety of different drugs to support the patient until they can create enough enzymes to replace those affected by the poison.”
Chemists raise questions over novichok claims
Some chemistry experts are uneasy about the way politicians informed the public about the novichok nerve agent used to poison Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, writes Clive Cookson.
In particular, chemists said, there is no way to link traces of novichok collected from the crime scene with a particular manufacturing site using science alone, without the use of intelligence sources.
The novichok agents are relatively simple organophosphorus compounds that competent chemists could make from globally traded ingredients, if they had a specific molecular target in mind.
“The whole family of novichoks are quite easy to make,” said Phil Parsons, an organic chemistry professor at Imperial College London. “You could synthesise them in any good chemistry lab, though you would have to take stringent safety precautions to prevent the staff being poisoned.”
Details of several novichok agents have been available on the internet for years. The UK government has not officially said which one poisoned the Skripals. Vladimir Uglev, a member of the Soviet team that developed novichoks, said he had no doubt it was A-234, a view shared unofficially by experts in the UK. But there has been uncertainty about the precise structure of A-234.
A number of chemists said they did not want to throw doubt on the government’s claim that Russia was responsible for attack on the Skripals, but that the public should not regard novichoks as ultra-sophisticated chemical weapons that could not be made elsewhere. They also regarded the phrase “military grade”, applied to the nerve agent in some government statements, as meaningless in this context, since there exists no known lesser grade of the agent.
Professor Andrea Sella of University College London said: “The Russians have run a ferocious misinformation campaign and some UK politicians have inadvertently helped them. Boris Johnson has sometimes seemed like a babe in the woods.”
Novichoks (named after the Russian word for “newcomer”) were developed in the former Soviet Union during the 1970s and 1980s, in a project to make nerve agents that would be lethal in even smaller doses than compounds such as sarin or soman. They work in the same way, by blocking an enzyme called acetylcholinesterase that is essential for the human nervous system to function.
https://www.ft.com/content/f7619e96-3cc ... 94fa33a81e
Once we have conclusive, hard, evidence, I will be the first to condemn Russia. But I don't believe we have it yet. That is my opinion, it's not because Corbyn nor anyone else thinks it, it is just what I believe. Maybe I'm wrong but I have looked at a variety of sources and I just don't have enough evidence to point the finger at Russia. End of story.
I have no issue that is how you feel
Again the British Governemnt held two views on this
Eiether that Russia lost control of such chemical weapons or carried this out themselves
Putin and his ganagsters denied that this weapon even existed, when its blatantly clear it does exist and was formed and created in Russia
I mean that is damning in itself, but if you need more evidence, I respect that you need this
What Cornyn did, was though parrot what the Russians claimed
That to me was poor
