An article which says the actual poison application was done by a pro:
British officials investigating the poisoning of Sergei V. Skripal, a former Russian double agent, believe it is likely that an assassin smeared a nerve agent on the door handle at his home. This operation is seen as so risky and sensitive that it is unlikely to have been undertaken without approval from the Kremlin, according to officials who have been briefed on the early findings of the inquiry.
This theory suggests that an assassin, who Britain believes was working on behalf of the Russian government, walked up to the door of Mr. Skripal’s brick home on a quiet street in Salisbury on March 4, the day that he and his daughter, Yulia, were sickened.
Mr. Skripal, who was freed in a spy swap with the United States in 2010, is still in critical condition and unresponsive, but Yulia is conscious and talking, according to a BBC report.
Because the nerve agent is so potent, the officials said, the task could have been carried out only by trained professionals familiar with chemical weapons.
The ugly truth is you do not have a former Russian spook taking visitors from the mother country, who is not being watched, and being watched closely. Moreover, Russia will know this, because those are the rules of the game, and it is Russian intelligence’s business to know how their opposition operates.
Now, given how things work today, the moment the assassin would have turned on the street, everybody would have perked up and began paying close attention. As he approached the house, they only got more interested, until it would have been decided that he was now a target, and an entire team would be scrambled from the units that were just staged with nothing to do in the area. And now the assassin is going to have everything about him known in short order.
Given that, there are four possibilities I see. Less likely, an assassin just went there and did it. This would arouse the highest suspicion on the part of his watchers. Unless he was going to immediately drive to the water, dive, in, don a SCUBA apparatus under water, and then make his way out to a sub, it would not end well for him, and the Russians would know that.
He may have used a cover, driving up in a FedEx truck, and a full FedEx uniform, and delivering a package. My guess is that would only attract more attention, since it is intel’s job to know everything about a target’s neighborhood, including things like that, and who normally is assigned them.
He may have been a friend of the family, or someone expected to visit normally, who was specially trained. There is talk it could have been the daughter’s boyfriend, so as he was on the way out he somehow hit the door handle and moved on. Not impossible, but again, very high risk given a door used as an exit will get special attention, especially when dealing with a material which is supposed to be so potent. And this article seems to think it needed to be applied by a specialist in the Russian chemical weapons program.
Another possibility would be a drone delivered a spray in the middle of the night, but in these days, if you have a target location, they are constantly monitoring frequencies, and they have some pretty high-end tech on hand. I heard of a likely target location unaware of any activity nearby. They bought a drone for fun, turned it on, went to lift off, and watched as the drone “malfunctioned” and disappeared up into the sky, never to be seen again. They concluded drones were a dangerous waste of money, and didn’t buy any more.
All of those possibilities would seem to make hitting such a target at their house very difficult. I would think if the Russians were going to hit someone, they would pick a target which would be able to be hit on a predictable trip out on the fly, where coverage would be scrambling and periodically making mistakes in an environment they were not familiar with, and where the hit team had already laid all the groundwork.
Hitting him at his home base, where his watchers are set up, well established, and familiar with the rhythms of the neighborhood, would just seem too difficult.
Unless you had control of the intel op set up on the cul-de-sac that was responsible for the watching.
Spread r/K Theory, because nothing is what it seems in the hall of mirrors
The Russians would do it like Mossad does it. One or two gunmen would accost the victim in some quiet, out-of-the-way place, and shoot him in the head with a suppressed .22 LR revolver. No witnesses, no noise, no brass lying around, and one dead exspy. Works for the daughter, too.
If we adopt “Cui Bono” as our criterion, the most likely suspect is Teresa May, who desperately needed a distraction for all her problems and who got a big payout from the incident.
My thought may be a little jumbled but doesn’t it seem a little bit farfetched that this deadly chemical weapon will allow you to touch it drive 1 mile into town, go to a bar then proceed for a meal only for the poison to suddenly work on the way back to his car.
The story keeps getting more ridiculous and the British government keeps digging a bigger hole.
It’s even worse than that. They left home at 9.30am and collapsed at 4pm. So much for being a fast acting nerve agent which should paralyse someone very quickly. Also his daughter is said to be recovering, which is strange considering they were reportedly close to death’s door for so long.
Lots of erroneous reporting. A friend of the family has repeatedly tried to find out what is happening despite the media saying no one has been in contact. A professor at the hospital where they are has written to a newspaper in response to an article saying no one has been poisoned by a nerve agent. Then she is reported to have a Russian boyfriend with mafia connections and a ‘powerful’ mother.
Now it’s because she recently obtained access to a bank,account with £150k in it belonging to her deceased brother. The implication that the funds are nefarious in some way, though that’s normal if she was an Executor for his estate. But then how,did her brother die? Talk about convoluted. I doubt we will ever know the truth.
Some folks at the Saker’s blog have put together a much more plausible story about what really went on. It’s a six part series, the last of which is here (which contains links to the other 5 sections). “Novichok” was never a name used by the Soviets in the development of these derivatives of VX – said to be 5-8 times as deadly – as part of their FOLIANT program. If VX had been used, both the Skripals would have been dead the day of the attack. Skripal was sentenced to 13 months by a Russian military court and exchanged later on. He no doubt seriously undermined a number of Russian assets in the UK, any number of whom would no doubt like revenge. There’s also the strong possibility – given the TV broadcast using “Novichok” a week before – that it’s a cabal false-flag to lure the US into a war with Russia via the lying Teresa May’s invoking the NATO Treaty.