https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/11/salisbury-public-warned-wash-clothes-nerve-agent-attack/

I've been following this some. To me, it seems to be a somewhat sloppy and indiscriminate assassination attempt and not very "Russian agent-like"  --at least not the movie version of Russian agents.

>sloppy

Perhaps intentionally so as a warning or some FSB agents settling scores on their own.

In case you missed it, this series of articles is fascinating. Warning: some are long, but worth the read.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/heidiblake/poison-in-the-system?utm_term=.tngXKE6AG#.xxE9g0pa7

>Perhaps intentionally

Yes, good thinking.

If the intent is not assassination but to disrupt the social fabric it needs to be visible and make press.

This is going to get interesting.  The use of chemical weapons in a UK city cannot slide by unchallenged.  I hope the US backs the UK response 100 percent.

Back in the Cold War days, I read a book "Inside the KGB", I believe the title was, one failing of the KGB was it was so big that often one hand didn't know what the other was doing so sometimes different divisions were working at cross purposes unbeknownst to each other.  Another problem was lots of things just fell through the cracks. CIA had the same problems.  I can imagine the FSB has similar issues.

All that might point to sloppy.

If Putin didn't know about it, somebody high up did, you don't get access to these weapons over the counter. Or as PM said, Russia has lost control of their arsenal of chemical weapons.

>The use of chemical weapons in a UK city cannot slide by unchallenged.

We've already let it slide many times before, one example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko

I think we have to be careful and look outside our little bubble. We view this as unacceptable, I don't think it is viewed that way in Russia and also in the vast majority of other countries in the world.

I may be remembering this wrong, but in the early days of Cold War espionage both sides were killing each others agents quite regularly.  Eventually both sides got tired of this, plus Stalin died, and tacit rules developed that lowered the body count.  We might be heading back to those earlier times or the Russians are already there and the West is just now getting the memo.

My read is that the public actions by the West will be tepid, and we are unlikely to ever know about any covert responses.  But just like a kid the Russians are testing the limits and somehow they need to be brought up sharply in a manner they understand or the problem will grow.

From what I've skimmed, the UK is just jumping to the most obvious conclusion; Russian spy pissed Putin off.  But what if, say, North Korea saw an advantage in aggravating UK-Russian relationships?

hmmmmm

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/13/russian-exile-nikolai-glushkov-found-dead-at-his-london-home

If done right, UK could score in the propaganda wars by seriously and publicly reopening those 12 to 14 inquiries into the deaths of Russian exiles and and people associated with those exiles. Because, frankly the only people who believe Russian denials are those already in Russia's pocket.

Cold War Tactics Return to Britain

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/03/theresa-may-expel-diplomats-russia/555581/

There is a small chance that the attack was done by someone else besides Russia.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-russia-stockpiles/secret-trial-shows-risks-of-nerve-agent-theft-in-post-soviet-chaos-experts-idUSKCN1GQ2RH?il=0

The problem is that only Russia has an obvious motive to murder this guy.
As far as means goes, if it was the Russian mob a bullet would have been easier.

It will be interesting if the investigators can figure out where and how the nerve agent was administered that could tell them a lot.

>disrupt the social fabric
>don't think it is viewed that way in Russia

Agreed. We had a segment last night on the news where a DK reporter just did some wox pop on the street in Russia and EVERYONE the asked didn't know about it, didn't care about it or down right thought is was the rest of the World pointing fingers at Russia ("again").

>may expel

She already did - 23 of them got a week to get out:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43402506

QuoteI want to remind you that Russia is one of the leading nuclear powers

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/vladimir-putin/11064209/Vladimir-Putin-Dont-mess-with-nuclear-armed-Russia.html

This could potentially get out of hand.

Even if proven there's Russian government involvement, it feels like we just defer repercussive measures to our big brother, the USA.

This could be the start of cold war 2.

I hope not.