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Originally Posted by Stuart
I believe the Russians did it. It does fit in with Putin's style, even if he didn't directly order it.
That said, it troubles me. It troubles me that it was so public. The two people caught were apparently experienced spies, yet they got caught on CCTV? Maybe the Skripals, being experienced spies were unusually wary of quiet out of the way places (which would be the most logical place to kill someone - no one to notice, probably no CCTV), so would only go into busy public places.
That said, the Russians did kill that guy on London Bridge a few years ago. Can't get much more public than that. Maybe they were trying to send a message to other operatives. A warning that they can still be killed?
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They used a nerve agent that could only have come from a Russian government laboratory, and two well known military intelligence operatives rather than a ‘clean skin’ attacker. They had no intention of hiding their involvement here. Their only concession to op-sec was the false passports, but this will simply to have been to avoid the risk of a flag going up at immigration and preventing the operation from going ahead. Once it was done, they didn’t care if Five worked it out, in fact they would have been quite certain that they would.
I would say that Putin firstly wanted Russians everywhere to know that there’s nowhere he can’t get to them. Secondly he wanted to stress-test Western resolve. Exactly how far would we go in retaliation, and who would go with us?
Naming the “suspects” today is theatre for public consumption. They’re highly unlikely ever to end up in an English court, unless they’re careless enough to get arrested somewhere in an EU country. We will never know what the British and other governments are really doing about this, because that takes place in James Bond land, or at least the real-world equivalent of it. Probably more like Nick Stone, if you’re familiar with him.