# Former Russian spy, and two others, poisoned with nerve agent in UK
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-russian-spy-and-two-others-poisoned-with-nerve-agent-in-uk/810219
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [March 8, 2018, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-russian-spy-and-two-others-poisoned-with-nerve-agent-in-uk/810219 "2018-03-08T03:41:16Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walken_After_Midnight)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2018, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-russian-spy-and-two-others-poisoned-with-nerve-agent-in-uk/810219/41 "2018-03-10T05:12:48Z")
Looking on the map, the cemetery is around a mile away from the bench. The Wikipedia page on nerve agents says that the first symptoms of exposure usually appear in seconds. So the distance between these two locations is a bit curious. Kim Jong-nam appeared to be able to walk around normally for at least some time, though, after he was attacked.
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### Author:  [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2018, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-russian-spy-and-two-others-poisoned-with-nerve-agent-in-uk/810219/42 "2018-03-10T05:28:21Z")
The concentration and application of poison is probably widely variable. I’m not surprised at all to hear that the Russian guys who killed Litvinenko got the polonium on themselves and were “mildly” poisoned…that’s so Russian. Remember also what happened at the Beslan seige: Russia pumped in poison gas with zero concern about casualties, and all the hostages died. Russia is…well, it’s Russia.
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### Author:  [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2018, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-russian-spy-and-two-others-poisoned-with-nerve-agent-in-uk/810219/43 "2018-03-10T09:14:01Z")
> [@Jacquernagy](#):
>
> Russia is…well, it’s Russia.
It’s Putin being Putin.
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### Author:  [@JoseB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoseB)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2018, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-russian-spy-and-two-others-poisoned-with-nerve-agent-in-uk/810219/44 "2018-03-10T11:51:46Z")
> [@Jacquernagy](#):
>
> The concentration and application of poison is probably widely variable. I’m not surprised at all to hear that the Russian guys who killed Litvinenko got the polonium on themselves and were “mildly” poisoned…that’s so Russian. Remember also what happened at the Beslan seige: Russia pumped in poison gas with zero concern about casualties, and all the hostages died. Russia is…well, it’s Russia.
Point of order - you are conflating two events.
In the Beslan school siege of 2004, the Russian forces staged an all-out assault (from Wikipedia: “Russian security forces stormed the building with the use of tanks, incendiary rockets and other heavy weapons”) that ended up, indeed, with 330+ people killed and 1200+ injured in the cross-fire.
However, the gas thing was from the theater siege in Moscow, in 2002. At the end the security forces pumped fentanyl-based anesthetic gas into the theater; after everybody was unconscious they went in and shot the terrorists one by one in the head. But more than 130 hostages died of fentanyl overdose because in the beginning the security forces refused to let the doctors know what was in the knock-out has they had used, and the doctors ended up trying to treat the unconscious hostages “blind”.
It seems clear that when they say that Russia doesn’t give a fuck, they are not being facetious or metaphorical…
Links to the relevant wikipedia articles:
> **[Moscow theater hostage crisis](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis)**
>
> Crisis ended
> Russia
> The Moscow theater hostage crisis (also known as the 2002 Nord-Ost siege) was the seizure of the crowded Dubrovka Theater in Moscow by Chechen terrorists on 23 October 2002, resulting in the taking of 912 hostages. The attackers, led by Movsar Barayev, claimed allegiance to the Islamist separatist movement in Chechnya. They demanded the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya and an end to the Second Chechen War. The crisis was resolved when Russian security services...
> **[Beslan school siege](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_siege)**
>
> The Beslan school siege (also referred to as the Beslan school hostage crisis or the Beslan massacre) was a terrorist attack that started on 1 September 2004. It lasted three days, and involved the imprisonment of more than 1,100 people as hostages, (including 777 children) ending with the deaths of 334 people, 186 of them children, as well as 31 of the attackers. It is considered the deadliest school shooting in history.
> The crisis began when a group of armed terrorists occupied School Numbe...
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### Author:  [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walken_After_Midnight)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2018, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-russian-spy-and-two-others-poisoned-with-nerve-agent-in-uk/810219/45 "2018-03-12T18:50:01Z")
The UK PM has [told Parliament](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43377856) that it is now clear that the Russian couple were poisoned by a military grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia, part of a group of nerve agents called [Novichok](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novichok_agent). She said that it was a sign that either the Russian government were responsible, or that they had “lost control” of the nerve agent and allowed it to get into the hands of others.
Over the weekend, the Russian embassy in the UK [tweeted this](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/10/sergei-skripal-russia-murder-spy-cobra-counter-terrorism): “What a coincidence! Both Litvinenko and Skripal worked for MI6. Berezovsky and Perepilichny were linked to UK special services. Investigation details classified on grounds of national security.”
It is intriguing that they explicitly mentioned Berezovsky and Perepilichny. [Berezovsky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Berezovsky_(businessman)) was a Russian oligarch and vocal Putin critic who had been living in the UK since 2000, having been given political asylum there. He was found dead in his London home in 2013 in a locked bathroom with a ligature around his neck. He was apparently in debt and had become depressed and isolated in his final months, so this might easily have been chalked off as suicide. However, the ligature marks around his neck were circular rather than V-shaped, as is commonly the case with hanging victims. The body also had a fresh wound on the back of the head and a fractured rib. At the inquest, the coroner recorded an open verdict.
[Perepilichny](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Perepilichny) was a Russian businessman who became a whistleblower, revealing fraud by senior Russian officials. In 2012, he went for a jog near London and was found dead by the side of the road. Autopsies were inconclusive, but, a couple of years later, Perepilichny’s life insurance company ordered tests that detected a toxin in his stomach from the Chinese flowering plant _Gelsemium_, which triggers cardiac arrest if ingested. In 2017, it was reported that U.S. intelligence officials passed MI6 intelligence indicating that Perepilichny was likely “assassinated on direct orders from Putin or people close to him”.
The chair of the home affairs select committee has written to the Home Secretary calling for [a review](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-43299598) of 14 other cases of mysterious deaths of people linked to Russia in the UK.
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2018, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-russian-spy-and-two-others-poisoned-with-nerve-agent-in-uk/810219/46 "2018-03-12T18:55:22Z")
Paging Harry Palmer.
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### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2018, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-russian-spy-and-two-others-poisoned-with-nerve-agent-in-uk/810219/47 "2018-03-12T19:20:18Z")
> [@JoseB](#):
>
> I do not interpret **dalej42** as saying that Theresa May is a weak Prime Minister because she is a woman, but because of the difficult and precarious circumstances she (as a Prime Minister) finds herself in: a hung parliament, a very difficult negotiation with the EU regarding Brexit that is taking _a lot_ of the energy and work of the UK government, and generally a weak position of the UK right now in the international arena (some of these are of her own making, but I won’t talk about this so as to not derail the thread… and, anyway, those were miscalculations that a male Prime Minister was perfectly able of making as well).
So what exactly would a powerful, forceful, masterful, dominant, alpha prime minister with a big swinging dick do in this case that May isn’t doing?
We already know how this story goes. The Brits are going to complain about the Russians. The Russians are going to tell them to get stuffed.
What does Theresa May’s political strength have to do with any of it?
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### Author:  [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2018, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-russian-spy-and-two-others-poisoned-with-nerve-agent-in-uk/810219/48 "2018-03-12T19:37:35Z")
> [@Lemur866](#):
>
> So what exactly would a powerful, forceful, masterful, dominant, alpha prime minister with a big swinging dick do in this case that May isn’t doing?
I have to say it was a strong speech today but then this is exactly her area of expertise. It will be interesting to see what is said after the Russians (obviously) refuse to co-operate in any way, shape or form.
Oh, by the way, does anyone know of any important elections this week? I’d hate to think that this diplomatic spat might overshadow anything important or be used as political capital.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2018, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-russian-spy-and-two-others-poisoned-with-nerve-agent-in-uk/810219/49 "2018-03-14T19:29:58Z")
‘If we can hack the U.S. elections, we can get away with murder!’
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### Author:  [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2018, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-russian-spy-and-two-others-poisoned-with-nerve-agent-in-uk/810219/50 "2018-03-14T21:48:34Z")
> [@Lemur866](#):
>
> So what would a prime minister who had some balls and a big swinging dick do that Theresa May can’t do?
She can get the RAF to get aggressive with Russian freedom of navigation flights with their Bear Bombers, start a war with their inteligence agencies, sabotaging different things in Russia with the SAS, supply anti assad guerillas in Syria with weapons for the purpose of targeting strictly Russian personal.
She does have options, its just a matter of how much you want to escalate.
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### Author:  [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2018, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-russian-spy-and-two-others-poisoned-with-nerve-agent-in-uk/810219/51 "2018-03-15T01:48:56Z")
I’m trying very hard to imagine a scenario that involves starting a war with Russia and simultaneously results in a favorable outcome for the UK. Very hard indeed. I’d say that speculation would require a separate thread…or _Threads_, plural.
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### Author:  [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2018, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-russian-spy-and-two-others-poisoned-with-nerve-agent-in-uk/810219/52 "2018-03-15T01:57:52Z")
> [@Jacquernagy](#):
>
> .or _Threads_, plural.
I see what you did there
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### Author:  [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walken_After_Midnight)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2018, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-russian-spy-and-two-others-poisoned-with-nerve-agent-in-uk/810219/53 "2018-03-15T02:02:19Z")
The UK has been finding it [hard to gain EU support](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/13/sergei-skripal-spy-poisoning-russia-uk-sanctions-eu-lack-consensus) for further Russian sanctions. Post-Brexit, their power to influence the rest of Europe has waned.
Also, I heard that the Skripal attack represented the first use of military-grade chemical weapons in Europe since 1945.
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### Author:  [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2018, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-russian-spy-and-two-others-poisoned-with-nerve-agent-in-uk/810219/54 "2018-03-15T13:13:45Z")
> [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](#):
>
> The UK has been finding it [hard to gain EU support](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/13/sergei-skripal-spy-poisoning-russia-uk-sanctions-eu-lack-consensus) for further Russian sanctions. Post-Brexit, their power to influence the rest of Europe has waned.
Things seem to moving on that front. The UK, US, France and Germany just issued a joint statement.
>
(I’ll add the text when I find it in c&p-able form.
> [@](#):
>
> Also, I heard that the Skripal attack represented the first use of military-grade chemical weapons in Europe since 1945.
The above statement makes that very point.
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### Author:  [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2018, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-russian-spy-and-two-others-poisoned-with-nerve-agent-in-uk/810219/55 "2018-03-15T13:46:32Z")
Here’s the statement:
> [@](#):
>
> We, the leaders of France, Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom, abhor the attack that took place against Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, UK, on 4 March 2018. A British police officer who was also exposed in the attack remains seriously ill, and the lives of many innocent British citizens have been threatened. We express our sympathies to them all, and our admiration for the UK police and emergency services for their courageous response.
>
> This use of a military-grade nerve agent, of a type developed by Russia, constitutes the first offensive use of a nerve agent in Europe since the second world war. It is an assault on UK sovereignty and any such use by a state party is a clear violation of the chemical weapons convention and a breach of international law. It threatens the security of us all.
>
> The United Kingdom briefed thoroughly its allies that it was highly likely that Russia was responsible for the attack. We share the UK assessment that there is no plausible alternative explanation, and note that Russia’s failure to address the legitimate request by the UK government further underlines its responsibility. We call on Russia to address all questions related to the attack in Salisbury. Russia should in particular provide full and complete disclosure of the Novichok programme to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
>
> Our concerns are also heightened against the background of a pattern of earlier irresponsible Russian behaviour. We call on Russia to live up to its responsibilities as a member of the UN Security Council to uphold international peace and security.
A slight increase of pressure rather than anything more dramatic?
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### Author:  [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walken_After_Midnight)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2018, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-russian-spy-and-two-others-poisoned-with-nerve-agent-in-uk/810219/56 "2018-03-16T16:50:18Z")
The death of another Russian businessman, found dead in London three days ago from “compression to the neck”, is now being [treated as a murder investigation](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43433552). Nikolai Glushkov, a former deputy director of Russian state airline Aeroflot, was jailed in 1999 for money laundering and fraud. He fled to the UK, and became another critic of Putin. He was also a friend of Berezovsky, who died in a similar manner, as I mentioned earlier in the thread.
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### Author:  [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2018, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-russian-spy-and-two-others-poisoned-with-nerve-agent-in-uk/810219/57 "2018-03-16T17:34:56Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#):
>
> A judicial execution in the homeland is one thing; a government-sponsored murder committed on foreign soil is something else altogether.
> [@Ludovic](#):
>
> okay :::shrugs::: “A government-sponsored murder committed on foreign soil is something else”.
> [@MEBuckner](#):
>
> “A government-sponsored murder committed on foreign soil is something else.”
> [@Jacquernagy](#):
>
> I really wish I could understand what point you, and the previous guy who quoted that, are trying to make?
> [@MEBuckner](#):
>
> [“It’s an entirely different kind of flying, altogether.”](https://youtu.be/0wxp-NxJny8?t=80)
> [@Jacquernagy](#):
>
> Are you guys stoned or just busting chops? I still don’t understand what the hell you mean.
They’re making a joke. It’s a pun, popularized by the movie _Airplane_ in the scene linked to.
The joke is that when someone says “_some phrase_, altogether”, the word “altogether” is ambiguous. It could be taken as _emphasis_ or as a _stage direction_ to have everyone repeat the phrase.
So that’s what they’re doing. They’re repeating the part of the phrase before the word “altogether” as though it were intended as a stage direction.
Surely you understand it now?
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### Author:  [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2018, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-russian-spy-and-two-others-poisoned-with-nerve-agent-in-uk/810219/58 "2018-03-16T17:58:57Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#):
>
> Surely you understand it now?
I see what you did there.
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### Author:  [@3trew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/3trew)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2018, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-russian-spy-and-two-others-poisoned-with-nerve-agent-in-uk/810219/59 "2018-03-16T18:06:10Z")
> [@Jacquernagy](#):
>
> I see what you did there.
Yes, but what do you make of it?
Convenient Conspiracy Theory: remember those weapons of mass destruction we couldn’t find in Iraq? Obviously our good buddy Vlad wouldn’t do anything bad like poison someone, so we can only conclude that Iraq’s chemical weapons were spirited away by a shadowy leftist organization and are being used to frame poor, innocent Russia.
On second thought, that may not be quite stupid enough. Maybe work in some aliens?
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### Author:  [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2018, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-russian-spy-and-two-others-poisoned-with-nerve-agent-in-uk/810219/60 "2018-03-16T18:28:01Z")
If Britain really wanted to get back at Russia they’d hold another Brexit referendum due to interference in the last one. Complete with ads saying a vote to leave is a vote for Putin.
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