Novitsjok (novichok) uitgelegd door wetenschappers, Groot-Brittannië zit ‘goed fout….’

Op deze
plek heb ik een paar artikelen en berichten gebracht over de aanslag
op ex-dubbelspion Skripalski en zijn dochter. Keer op keer blijkt het
hele novitsjok (novichok) verhaal doorgestoken kaart om Rusland nog
verder te demoniseren.

VVD volksverlakker Rutte stelde eerder nog dat hij onomstotelijk bewijs wil zien voor de Russische verantwoordelijkheid (en nee, dat had ik niet verwacht), echter een theekransje met leiders van EU landen was voldoende om z’n mening om te doen slaan, zo werd vanmorgen gemeld….. Het ‘bewijs’ dat Groot-Brittannie opvoert is nu wel voldoende voor het pedant onzelfstandige ventje……

Ook in
het volgende artikel van Moon of Alabama op Information Clearing House, wordt het novitsjok verhaal
doorgeprikt als onzin (o.a. met ‘de onthulling’ dat de georganiseerde misdaad in Rusland ook over dit soort gif beschikt):

Russian
Scientists Explain ‘Novichok’ – High Time For Britain To Come Clean

By
Moon Of Alabama

March
21, 2018 “Information
Clearing House” – A
week ago we asked if
‘Novichok’ poisons are real. The answer is now in: It is ‘yes’ and
‘no’. Several Russian scientist now say that they once researched and
developed lethal poisons but they assert that other countries can and
have copied these. ‘Novichok’, they say, is a just western
propaganda invention. They see the British accusations as a cynical
plot against Russia. The people who push the ‘Novichok’ accusations
have political and commercial interests.

The
British Prime Minister Theresa May insinuated that
the British-Russian double agent Sergej Skripal and his daughter
Yulia, who collapsed
on March 4 on
a public bench in Salisbury, were affected by a ‘Russian’ nerve
agent:

It
is now clear that Mr Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a
military-grade nerve agent of
a type developed by Russia.
It is part of a group of nerve agents known
as Novichok.

Theresa
May’s claims are highly questionable.

Maria Zakharova, spokeswomen of the Russian Foreign Ministry: “‘Novichok’ has never been used in the USSR or in Russia as something related to the chemical weapon research” – bigger

A
highly potent nerve agent would hurt anyone who comes in contact with
it. But the BBC reported that a doctor who administered first aid to
the collapsed Yulia Skripal for 30 minutes was not
affected at all.
Another doctor, Steven Davies who heads the emergence room of the
Salisbury District Hospital, wrote in
a letter the London Times:

“… no
patients have experienced symptoms of nerve agent poisoning in
Salisbury and
there have only been ever been three patients with significant
poisoning.”

The
name ‘Novichok’ comes from a
book written
by Vil Mirzayanov, a 1990s immigrant to the U.S. from the former
Soviet Union. It describe his work at Soviet chemical weapon
laboratories and lists the chemical formulas of a new group of lethal
substances.

AFP interviewed the
author of the ‘Novichok’ book about the Salisbury incident:

Mirzayanov,
speaking at his home in Princeton, New Jersey, said he is convinced
Russia carried it out as a way of intimidating opponents of President
Vladimir Putin.
…The
only other possibility, he said, would be that someone used the
formulas in his book to make such a weapon.

“Russia
did it”, says Mirzanyanov, “OR SOMEONE WHO READ MY BOOK”

A
‘Novichok’ nerve agent plays a role in the current seasons of the
British-American spy drama Strike
Back which
broadcasts on British TV. Theresa May might have watched this
clip (vid)
from the series. Is it a source of her allegations?

The
Russian government rejects the British allegations and demands
evidence which Britain has not provided. Russia joined the Chemical
Weapon Convention in 1997. By 2017 it had destroyed all
its chemical weapons and chemical weapon production facilities. Under
the convention only very limited amounts of chemical weapon
agents are
allowed to
be held in certified laboratories for defense research and testing
purposes. The U.S. has such laboratories at Fort Detrick
in Frederick, Maryland, the British lab is in Porton Down, a few
miles from Salisbury. The Russian lab is in Shikhany in
the southern Saratov Oblast. The Organisation for the Prohibition of
Chemical Weapons (OPCW) audits these laboratories and their declared
stocks “down to the milligram level”.

The
spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry and famous high
heels folk dancer (vid)
Maria Zakharova explains ina
TV interview (vid,
English subtitles) that ‘Novichok’ was not and is not the name of any
Soviet or Russian program. The word was introduced in the “west”
simply because it sounded Russian.

Western
media claimed that Vil Miranzayanov is the developer of the
‘Novichok’ chemicals. It turns out that this is not the case.
Interviews with two retired Russian chemists, both published only
yesterday, tell the real story. The Russia news agency RIA
Novostni talked
with Professor
Leonid Rink (machine
translation):

Did
you have anything to do with creating what the British authorities
call the “Novice”?

–
Yes. This was the basis of my doctoral dissertation.

At
that time I worked in Shikhany, in the branch of GosNIIOKhT (State
Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology, during Soviet
times was engaged in the development of chemical weapons), was a
leading researcher and head of the laboratory.

Professor
Rink says that:

‘Novichok’
or ‘novice’ was never used as a program name. New Soviet formulas
had alphanumeric codes.
Several
new nerve agents were developed in Shikhany in the 1970s and 80s.
These
new substances can cause immediate deadly reactions when applied to
humans.
Vil
Mirzayanov was head of the chromatographer group, chemists who deals
with the separation and analysis of various mixtures of substances.
He was responsible for environmental control and not a developer of
any new substances.

The Associated
Press summarizes other
parts of the interview with Professor Rink:

Rink
told Russia’s state RIA Novosti news agency Tuesday that Britain
and other western nations easily could have synthesized the nerve
agent after chemical expert Vil Mirzayanov emigrated to the United
States and revealed the formula.

Echoing
Russian government statements, Rink says it wouldn’t make sense for
Moscow to poison Sergei Skripal, a military intelligence officer who
spied for Britain, because he was a used asset “drained” by both
Russia and Britain.

He
claims Britain’s use of the name Novichok for the nerve agent is
intended to convince the public that Russia is to blame.

The
English-Russian magazine The Bell interviews another
Russian scientists involved in the issue:

The
Bell was able to find and speak with Vladimir Uglev, one of the
scientists who was involved in developing the nerve agent referred to
as “Novichok”. […] Vladimir Uglev, formerly a scientist with
Volsk branch of GOSNIIOKHT (“State Scientific-Research Institute
for Organic Chemistry and Technology”), which developed and tested
production of new lethal substances since 1972, spoke for the first
time about his work as early as the 1990s. He left the institute in
1994 and is now retired.

– The
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs insists that there was no
research nor development of any substance called “Novichok”, not
in Russia, nor in the USSR. Is that true?

–
In
order to make it easier to understand the subject matter, I will not
use the name “Novichok” which has is now commonly used by
everyone to describe those four substances which were conditionally
assigned to me to develop over a period of several years. Three of
these substances are part of the “Foliant” program, which was led
by Pyotr Kirpichev, a scientist with GOSNIIOKHT (State
Scientific-Research Institute for Organic Chemistry and Technology).
The first substance of a new class of organophosphorous chemical
agents, I will call it “A-1972”, was developed by Kirpichev in
1972. In 1976, I developed two substances: “B-1976” and “C-1976”.
The fourth substance, “D-1980”, was developed by Kirpichev in the
early 1980s. All of these substances fall under the group referred to
as “Novichkov”, but that name wasn’t given to the substances by
GOSNIIOKHT.

All
four chemical agents are “FOS” or organophosphorous compounds
which have a nerve paralyzing effect, but they differ in their
precursors, how they were discovered and in their usage as agents of
chemical warfare.

The
four substances were developed by Pyotr Kirpichev and Vladimir Uglev.
These substances were not readily usable by the military as they
could not be safely transported and used in the field like binary
chemical weapons can.
Once synthesized they were extremely dangerous. Professor Leonid
Rink, working later in a different group, tackled the problem but did
not succeed. Uglev confirms that Vil Miranzayanov was not involved in
the development at all. His group was responsible chemical analysis
and for environmental control around the laboratory.

Vladimir Uglev, via The Bell – bigger

Vladimir
Uglev, like Renk and Miranzayanov, notes that these agents “of a
type developed by Russia” can now be produced by any
sufficiently equipped laboratory, including private ones.

Uglev
mentions a criminal use of one of the agents in the 1990s:

One
of these substances was used to poison the banker, Ivan Kivelidi and
his secretary in 1995. A cotton ball, soaked in this agent, was
rubbed over the microphone in the handset of Kivelidi’s telephone.
That specific dose was developed by my group, where we produced all
of the chemical agents, and each dose which we developed was given
its own complete physical-chemical passport. It was therefore not
difficult to determine who had prepared that dose and when it was
developed. Naturally, the investigators also suspected me. I was
questioned several times about this incident.

Journalist
Mark Ames, who worked in Moscow at that time, remarks:

This
muddles the narrative a bit —”novichok” used in 1995
Moscow mafia poison hit on top mobster Ivan Kivelidi. So:
1)
novichok [is] in mob hands too
2) used during reign of #1
Mobfather Boris Yeltsin, Washington’s vassal

Uglev
further notes that blood samples from the Salisbury victims, which
Moscow demands but Britain has not handed over, can show what agent
(if any) were involved and “where the specific dose was produced
and by whom.”

A
new article in the New Scientists confirms the
claims by the Russian scientists that the ‘Novichok’ agents which may
have affected the Skripals may have been produced elsewhere:

Weapons
experts have told New Scientist that a number of countries legally
created small amounts of Novichok after it was revealed in 1992 and a
production method was later published.

In
2016 Iranian scientists, in cooperation with the
OPCW, published production
and detection methods for such agents. It is likely that the various
government labs secretly re-developed and produced these chemicals
for their own purposes even prior to the Iranian publication.

[UPDATE]
In an interview with Deutsche Welle British Foreign
Minister Boris Johnson admits that
Proton Down had (illegal?) ‘Novichok’ agents when the incident
in Salisbury happened:

DW:
You argue that the source of this nerve agent, Novichok, is Russia.
How did you manage to find it out so quickly? Does
Britain possess samples of it?

Boris
Johnson: Let me be clear with you … When I look at the evidence, I
mean the people from Porton Down, the laboratory …

DW: So
they have the samples …

Boris
Johnson: They
do. And
they were absolutely categorical and I asked the guy myself, I said,
“Are you sure?” And he said there’s no doubt.

But
Porton Down did not agree with the British government to claim that
the supposed nerve agent was “made by Russia.” It only
agreed to the compromise formulation “of
a type developed by Russia” i.e. it could have been made
anywhere. [End Update]

The
claims by the British government that a. the Skripals were affected
by a nerve agent and that b. Russia was involved in the Skripal
incident because it has some exclusive access to these agents seem
both baseless. Unless there is significant further evidence the
British incrimination of Russia looks like a cynical plot invented
for political and/or commercial purposes.

As
usual in the military-industrial complex the people who push such
scares, are the ones who profit from them.

The
British Morning Star points to
one former British military intelligence officer, Colonel (rtd)
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, as a common protagonist in the Skripal
case, in the claims of Syrian chemical weapon use and in commercial
interests around chemical weapon defense:

Quoted
daily by multiple media outlets on the Skripal case, de
Bretton-Gordon has become a very public expert, relied upon for
unbiased comment and analysis by the British and foreign media on
chemical weapon threats from Salisbury to Syria.

He
is a former assistant director of Intelligence Surveillance and
Reconnaissance Land Forces with the Ministry of Defence. Before that
de Bretton-Gordon was commanding officer of Britain’s Chemical,
Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Regiment and Nato’s
Rapid Reaction CBRN Battalion.

While
his CBRN background is often mentioned, his military intelligence
links are rarely referred to publicly.

Long
before the Salisbury event, de Bretton-Gordon was urging greater
government expenditure on chemical protection counter-measures and
equipment.
…
de Bretton-Gordon is managing director CBRN of
Avon Protection Systems, based in Melksham, Wiltshire.
…
In
2017, the company made £50m from its US military contracts and a
further £63.3m from other “protection and defence” revenue.

The
former(?) army intelligence officer is also deeply involved in the
“moderate rebels” chemical weapon scams in Syria:

On
April 29 2014, the [Daily Telegraph] reported that it “obtained
soil samples collected from sites of chemical attacks inside Syria by
Dr Ahmad — a medic whose real identity cannot be revealed for his
own protection — who had previously received training in sample
collection by western chemical weapons experts.

“Mr
de Bretton-Gordon, a British chemical weapons expert and director of
Secure Bio, a private company, was one of the trainers.”

And
who carried out the tests? None other than de Bretton-Gordon himself.

The
“White Helmets” propaganda group in Syria was founded and
is run by the former(?) British army intelligence officer James Le
Mesurier with British and U.S. government money. His former(?)
colleague de Bretton-Gordon is running the parallel Syria chemical
weapon scam. Both profit from their government financed operations.

Other
British agents involved in the Skripal case are Pablo
Miller who recruited Skripal
for the MI6. He was a friend of Skripal, also lived in Salisbury and
worked for Christopher Steele, the former(?) MI6 agent who produced
the ‘dirty dossier’ about Donald Trump for the Clinton campaign. Both
are involved with
Russian mafia emigres in Britain like Boris Berezovski and the
deceased Alexander Litvinenko who’s father says that
he was killed by an MI6 or CIA guy.

While
the British government blamed the Russians just a week after the
incident in Salisbury happened it now seems interested in delaying
any further investigations. It took more than two weeks after the
incident for the British government to invite the OPCW to help with
the case. The head of the OPCW says it
will take another three weeks for
the organization to analyze the samples the British laboratory now
handed over. The British police requires several
months to
find out what happened to the Skripals.

How
could the British government be sure of “Russian”
involvement within a week and even expel Russian diplomats when the
primary chemical experts on the issue will need three weeks for their
first analyses and the British police predicts a several months long
investigation?

The
Russian scientist and their government have explained their history
and position in relation to ‘Novichoks’ and the Skripal incident. It
is high time now for the British government, its scientists at Porton
Down and its greedy mafia of former(?) British intelligence officer
and their criminal Russian emigres to come clean about their own
roles in it.

This
article was originally published by “Moon
of Alabama”
–

—

Previous Moon
of Alabama reports on the Skripal case: