- Russia still prime suspect but government story becoming more convoluted
- Sergei Skripal joins his daughter in recovery
- medics say survival thanks to fact of skin-absorption from door handle
- Porton Down told court poison did reach bloodstream.
- security services briefed media that door-handle method proved Russia behind the act – Russia trains its assassins in least efficient way of delivering the toxin
The story around the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal gets more convoluted and problematic by the day, almost the hour.
From being told originally that the Novichok poison used is five, eight or ten times (accounts vary) more toxic than the powerful VX nerve agent – and recently that they absorbed it from their front door handle where it had been applied in a ‘gloopy substance’ – we now have a situation in which all three people contaminated with the toxin have survived, with the announcement today that Sergei Skripal is responding well and is no longer in critical condition.
Sky News, announcing Mr Skripal’s improvement, explained that they had been told that the Skripal’s were able to recover because the toxin only got into their skin:
The reporter, who claimed to be quoting a medical source, says the poison got into the “dermis… the second of three layers of the skin” – clearly implying it didn’t get further.
Yet it did get into their bloodstream, according to Porton Down – who told a court when the government was applying for permission to draw further blood samples for testing by the OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons):
Yet, according to briefings to mainstream media by the security services, the presence of the toxin on the door handle was a ‘smoking gun’ proving that the poisoning was a Russian state operation, since that method was part of training to Russian agents:
So we have a Russian training manual telling spies to use a method that – according to medical analysis of the Skripals’ survival – doesn’t work very efficiently.
However, according to experts, organophosphate chemicals like VX and Novichok are:
easily absorbed through the skin, lungs, and gastrointestinal tract.
The latest news from Salisbury indicates that the Skripals were lucky because the absorption through the skin slowed down the action of the nerve agent. Yet according to the authorities, they were contaminated for long enough to leave traces of the poison at numerous locations around the city.
Long enough, too, for it to have gone through the skin into the bloodstream, according to Porton Down.
In spite of all that, the door-handle method supposedly recommended by the Russians to their assassins was what saved the Skripals’ lives.
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Given that a bunch of people including the Daily Beast published old KGB training manuals just after Christmas – and that Google has what look like possibly relevant entries going back to 2014 – and that whoever announced it as ‘evidence’ also knew about it – it doesn’t seem exactly conclusive to cite the door handle method as proof it was Putin wot done it.
I’m betting everyone in the Foreign Office and everybody else’s foreign offices – and probably everybody in Hollywood – knew about it too.
Only guessing the door handle thing would be in that manual of course – got better things to do than read it.
Re Hollywood: The Jackal, a 1997 remake of the 1973 classic The Day of the Jackal, has Bruce Willis, playing a *Russian* assassin-for-hire, spraying poison on the door handle of his minivan, to deter his pursuers
Echos of the way chemical weapons themes from The Rock (1996) made their way into festering Ali Campbell’s Iraq dossier.
Have we arrived as the point where proof beyond reasonable doubt can be deduced from IMDB entries?
This is a fucking joke what an embarrassment the Torys have brought on the UK and the BBC backing them up by telling us lie after lie it’s as if they think were all fucking thick we need to get rid of this shower of SHITE NOW
The BBC are living in a parallel universe where they think they can lie to us continuously without any consideration of peoples capacity to think for themselves, which says a lot for all these privately educated idiots, that think they are superior to the rest of us.
In truth these people are acting criminally and we should all be calling for every one of the liars to face criminal charges for deception.
If a poison is military grade that means, by definition, it has been designed to disable and kill soldiers, most likely in a theatre of war.
That, in turn, means it is designed to be instantly effective.
Therefore, as the Skripils were not immediately disabled and are still alive, whatever agent they were poisoned by was not a military grade poison and was not a Novichock type agent.
Which begs the question: what type of poison was used?
Ask Boris he’ll tell you “honestly ” guv !
Civilian grade, of course. Duh.
There should be a big protest march in London over this, like there was over the run up to the Iraq War
A substance left on a door handle is easy enough to spot and who in their right mind would touch it especially someone with a record like Mr Skripal’s
How do you know it would be easy to spot, what exactly does it look like and how much would it take?
Now given that numerous people used that same door and obviously same knob, sorry they have tried to cover bojos arse so much its obviously that they are playing
Tory Cleudo in good tory certified toy shops out now, a night out with Gavin Williamson in a swanky restaurant for the winner
Gavin Williamson? You mean the tory minister for “Goodnight Sweetheart?”
Amazing coincidence that the guy suddenly recovers from being at deaths door the day after the allegedly “bogus” telephone conversation between the daughter and her cousin in which the “daughter” said he was OK. And the statement they issued on behalf of the daughter who’s first language is Russian but it’s written in Estuary English.. “somewhat disorientated…” I ask you?
Just a thought. If the toxin was present in the skin, how did the doctors prevent it migrating into the bloodstream? Did they amputate their hands?