Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia
Written by Eric Zuesse
On 8 March 2018, the brilliant geostrategic analyst who anonymously writes the “Moon of Alabama” blog headlined “Poisoned British-Russian Double-Agent Has Links To Clinton Campaign”, and documented that Sergei Skripal had been a UK/Russia double agent who reported to Pablo Miller, who reported to Christopher Steele of UK’s MI6. Steele, in turn, had privately been hired by the U.S. Democratic Party’s Hillary Clinton campaign to find evidence they could use to persuade America’s voters that Trump was secretly a Russian agent. (Maybe Sergei had been used in that operation, but if he’s prevented from communicating to the public, the public won’t ever know.) “MoA” continued: “If there is a connection between the [Steele] dossier [on Trump] and Skripal, which seems very likely to me, then there are a number of people and organizations with potential motives to kill him [Skripal]. Lots of shady folks and officials on both sides of the Atlantic were involved in creating and running the anti-Trump/anti-Russia campaign. There are several investigations and some very dirty laundry might one day come to light. Removing Skripal while putting the blame on Russia looks like a convenient way to get rid of a potential witness” (who might pose a threat to America’s Democratic Party, if he were to testify against Steele, or to implicate Steele’s U.S. employer).
MI6’s Steele had, after all, served the Democratic Party very well against Trump and Russia (even though his ‘dossier’ offered no solid evidence). Sergei Skripal was a demonstrated turncoat who thus might yet turn again, but, this time, turn against MI6 and the Democratic Party. He had even been able to be cheaply bought: “Skripal’s reward for nine years of spying [for Britain, against Russia] was a surprisingly modest $100,000.” The service that he had provided to the Brits for that “modest” sum was huge: “Skripal and Miller came to an agreement: in exchange for money, Skripal provided information to the British about at least 300 of his colleagues in Russian intelligence.” (And that assertion comes from an anti-Putin Russian website.) For MI6 to have tried to kill Skripal and to blame it against Russia would therefore have seemed to MI6 like the best solution to multiple possible dangers to MI6 (by getting rid of their trash while simultaneously turning it into gold). (Furthermore: if Skripal really did have as his own sources “at least 300 of his colleagues in Russian intelligence,” then not only might he have endangered all of them, but, also, before burning them, he might have probed the likeliest of them for leads that Steele could possibly use to help the Democratic Party against Trump. And, since Skripal was already a condemned traitor, probably none of that ‘information’ would have been true. Of course, Hillary might not have even cared whether any of it was true.)
The UK Government definitely has been lying about the Skripals — Sergei and his visiting-from-Russia daughter Yulia Skripal, both of whom (father and daughter) were poisoned on 4 March 2018 — by lying about what the evidence in the attempted alleged poison-murder of Sergei showed. The Skripals (but only Yulia, not also her father, Sergei) last were (or was) presented to the public in a video taken at some time in May 2018 when Yulia Skripal was filmed actually at a U.S. military base in UK, as was first reported on 8 December 2019, in the great investigative journalist John Helmer’s online article, “The Skripals Under US Control at a USAF Nuclear Bomber Base in Fairford, Gloucestershire”. (Why she was being filmed at a U.S. nuclear base wasn’t explained by Helmer, who had needed to do considerable research in order merely to determine that that was the location where her brief pre-written speech was actually filmed.) That video of Yulia delivering that speech was presented, described, and analyzed, on 24 May 2018, by “MoA,” under the headline, “British Hostage Video Of Yulia Skripal Released”. Also shown by “MoA” there was the Russian original draft of her speech, in someone’s handwriting.
The UK’s Government lied in order to attribute to being definitely from Russia, the specific poison that was used so as to, presumably, attempt to kill the Russia-UK double agent, Sergei. One rare exception to the West’s lying about this key matter occurred in Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post, headlining on 4 April 2018, “Britain’s Boris Johnson accused of misleading public over Skripal poisoning evidence”. It reported that the soon-to-become Prime Minister had lied when Mr. Johnson alleged that UK’s definitive Government lab’s study of the poisonous chemical had been able to pin down the poison’s source as being Russia, by opening:
Dozens of countries have sided with Britain against Russia after Moscow was accused of using a military-grade nerve agent to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in England last month. Boris Johnson, Britain’s foreign secretary, now stands accused of publicly misrepresenting the evidence in the case.
Britain’s top military laboratory said Tuesday that it cannot verify the nerve agent in the March 4 poisoning came from Russia.
Gary Aitkenhead, chief executive of the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down, told Sky News that although the substance used in the attack had been identified as Novichok — a class of chemical weapons developed in the former Soviet Union and Russia — it was not clear whether it had been made in Russia. …
These comments appear to contradict remarks Johnson made in an interview with German broadcaster Deutsche Welle on March 20. Asked how the British government could be so sure Russia was behind the attack, Johnson deferred to “the people from Porton Down,” who he said were “absolutely categorical.”
“I asked the guy myself, I said, ‘Are you sure?’ And he said there’s no doubt,” Johnson said.
Here is how Wikipedia’s article on “Poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal” (mis)handled that crucial information from Porton Down:
Porton Down [edit]
On 3 April 2018 Gary Aitkenhead, the chief executive of the Government’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) at Porton Down responsible for testing the substance involved in the case, said they had established the agent was Novichok or from that family but had been unable to verify the “precise source” of the nerve agent and that they had “provided the scientific info to Government who have then used a number of other sources to piece together the conclusions you have come to”.[193][194] Aitkenhead refused to comment on whether the laboratory had developed or maintains stocks of Novichok.[194] He also dismissed speculations the substance could have come from Porton Down: “There is no way anything like that could have come from us or left the four walls of our facility.”[194] Aitkenhead stated the creation of the nerve agent was “probably only within the capabilities of a state actor”, and that there was no known antidote.[193][153]
That phrase “precise source” was left undefined there, as regards what it meant: did it mean the national source, the chemicals from which the chemical had been derived, or maybe even something else? Wikipedia didn’t say. Their entire passage was written so as to distract its readers away from that question — not to focus them toward it. “the phrase “precise source” was skillfully left there as a meaningless phrase, in order to prevent the reader from learning that Boris Johnson — the UK’s Government — had lied about this matter. But his having lied about the Porton Down report was the key fact there. Wikipedia just hides it
That footnote “153” there (the passage’s last-numbered footnote) is referencing the WP’s article, but carefully omits to include that article’s core fact, of the UK Government’s having lied about what their own definitive lab had reported to them, regarding the poison’s national source. Furthermore, as the meticulously careful and honest independent investigative journalist Craig Murray reported on 14 March 2018:
To summarise:
1) Porton Down has acknowledged in publications it has never seen any Russian “novichoks”. The UK government has absolutely no “fingerprint” information such as impurities that can safely attribute this substance to Russia.
2) Until now, neither Porton Down nor the world’s experts at the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) were convinced “Novichoks” even exist.
3) The UK is refusing to provide a sample to the OPCW.
4) “Novichoks” were specifically designed to be able to be manufactured from common ingredients on any scientific bench. The Americans dismantled and studied the facility that allegedly developed them. It is completely untrue only the Russians could make them, if anybody can.
5) The “Novichok” programme was in Uzbekistan not in Russia. Its legacy was inherited by the Americans during their alliance with Karimov, not by the Russians.
With a great many thanks to sources who cannot be named at this moment.
So: Porton Down was simply being honest to say they didn’t know from where that poison had originated. But readers at Wikipedia are left uninformed about any of these crucial facts, or even about the Porton Down lab’s having publicly denied what UK’s Government was publicly saying about what their lab had asserted.
This is, sadly, normal operating procedure for the CIA-edited and written Wikipedia, which blacklists (blocks from linking to) sites (such as “MoA,” Helmer, and Murray) that aren’t CIA-approved. Wikipedia has furthermore been rather thoroughly exposed to be an international Deep State “disinformation” operation (an operation to slant ‘information’ in favor of global billionaires), and to be fundamentally corrupt, selling out cheaply to a large number of billionaires, instead of relying upon only a few big-dollar donors like most big non-profits do (having fewer and bigger owners). Using this method, they claim to have “annual revenues in excess of US$109.9 million.” By means of excluding any links to sources such as you probably now are reading this article at, here, and by selectively warping, whenever necessary, what has been reported in the sources that they have approved to link to, they hide the crucial facts, such as (in this case) that the source of the poison wasn’t able to be identified, and that the UK’s Government lied about that.
Promptly after Johnson’s having lied to identify not only Russia, but Russia’s Government, as having been the source of the poison, UK’s Prime Minister, Theresa May, ordered additional sanctions imposed against Russia, and the UK and its allies promptly expelled 153 Russian diplomats (60 of whom were expelled from America); this was done on the basis of no evidence. As a consequence, Russia retaliated by expelling 189 diplomats from those countries.
To this day, there has been no legal case presented by the UK/U.S. side, that Russia had actually planned or executed the incident. Even more amazing is that both Yulia and Sergei Skripal have been blocked by the UK’s Government from answering any questions from the public, or from Russia’s Government, or from friends, or even from family-members of the Skripals. Both Sergei and Yulia simply disappeared, never been allowed to communicate to the public — and never allowed to testify in any legal proceeding.
On 19 March 2019, Britain’s Independent had the remarkable courage to headline “One year on, the Skripal poisoning case is still riddled with questions that no one wants to answer”; but, now, most of the questions that were listed there have, in fact, been answered, as will be documented here in the links. The results (as will be seen) are damning against the UK Government and against its allies (mainly the U.S.), all of whom expelled Russia’s diplomats based (as is now clear) only on manufactured lies against Russia regarding the Skripal case. The biggest scandal of all, however, is actually the Western press itself, which continues, to this day, to hide this scandal — a scandal now against themselves, as being not an authentic journalistic institution in an authentic democracy, but, instead, their own regime’s propaganda-agencies, mere cynical deceivers of their own public. This incident will go down in history — honest retrospective accounts of important public events — if such even still exists in the West (which may be seriously doubted, if one considers the present case as an example), as having been the operation of the West’s dictatorships: as having been propaganda, instead of journalism.
On March 16th of 2020, Helmer reported that “The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) at Porton Down, the principal chemical warfare testing unit of the British Ministry of Defence, has acknowledged it was producing and testing the organophosphate nerve agent Novichok from 2014.” He had provided the full details in his 26 February 2020 article “Secret US Chemical Warfare Contracts at the UK Porton Down Lab”. That introduction of evidence, from Porton Down’s experiments, for the U.S. Government’s chemical-warfare program, actually provides the clincher to Helmer’s masterful book on the subject, Skripal in Prison, which was published on 13 February 2020.
Previously, the UK Government had denied all of this. That fact should have rocked the Western press, and produced multiple mea culpas from them, but they have instead been hiding all of it from the public. If novichok can be produced anywhere, and had been produced at Porton Down, then the UK Government’s consistent allegations to the contrary have been mere lies.
The liberal neoconservative (or pro-imperialist fake-‘progressive’) British Guardian headlined on 13 April 2018 “Russia tested nerve agent on door handles before Skripal attack, UK dossier claims”, and reported
Russia had tested whether door handles could be used to deliver nerve agents and had targeted the email accounts of Sergei and Yulia Skripal since at least 2013, according to previously classified intelligence over the Salisbury attack that has been made public.
The UK released the intelligence on Friday linking Russia to the attack on the former double agent and his daughter.
The door handle and email claims were made in a letter from Sir Mark Sedwill, the UK’s national security adviser, to the NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg. It is extremely rare for the UK to make such intelligence public. …
Sedwill said Russia regarded at least some of its defectors as “legitimate targets for assassination”, with the suggestion that they could include Skripal, …
Again, the propagandists were using “suggestion,” instead of unambiguous assertion, just to cover themselves. It’s another example of a verbal curve ball.
That article quoted Sedwill as alleging “It is unlikely that novichoks could be made and deployed by non-state actors.” No evidence for any of his allegations was offered. The Guardian’s ‘journalism’ was pure stenographic spreading of the Government’s allegations, just like had happened regarding “Saddam’s WMD.”
Of course, whomever used novichok, or anything like it, on Sergei Skripal, was aiming to assassinate him so that Skripal wouldn’t be publicly available to testify about the circumstances which had led up to his poisoning. However, not only did he survive this botched assassination-attempt, but also his daughter — collateral damage in it — did. This created a crisis within the UK regime, which now had to cover up what it had done, and so they have since that event been imprisoning both Skripals and keeping them incommunicado away from the public and especially away from any opportunities by which they might be able safely to speak frankly to the press about the circumstances which had led up to the attempted murder of Mr. Skripal. Nor is there any court-case in that regime attempting to identify and punish individuals whom the Skripals, if freed from their British captors, would publicly and freely accuse as having participated in it. One interesting aspect of their imprisonments is that, at least a portion of it (if not all of it) has been spent at the U.S. Air Force Nuclear Bomber Base in Fairford, Gloucestshire, as was revealed in Helmer’s article, and in his 2020 book, Skripal in Prison.
On 6 April 2022, Helmer headlined “BRITISH GOVERNMENT ENGAGES SECRET LAWYER TO REPRESENT SERGEI SKRIPAL AND YULIA SKRIPAL IN PUBLIC INQUIRY”, and reported that “The government’s payment to Chapman to act for the Skripals makes it appear they are alive and not in prison.” However, Chapman refused to answer any questions from Helmer. Helmer noted:
Sergei Skripal has not been seen in public since the day of the first alleged Novichok attack, March 4, 2018. He has not been heard on the telephone by family members since June 26, 2019 [6]. Yulia Skripal was last seen in a British and US-directed interview at a US bomber base in May 2018; [7] her last telephone call was heard on November 20, 2020 [8]. In the seventeen months since then, there has been no independent evidence [9] [after 26 June 2019] that they are alive.
Then, on 21 July 2022, Helmer headlined “SEVEN SKRIPAL SECRETS THE SECRET INTELLIGENCE SERVICE DIDN’T WANT TO LET OUT”, and he reported that Chapman refused even to answer any questions that the judge in the case had asked, such as: “Did he have anything to say to the court for Sergei and Yulia Skripal, Chapman was asked. ‘Nothing’, Chapman replied”:
Chapman’s silence, his refusal to say he had communicated directly with the Skripals to verify they are alive, capable of giving him instructions, and not in prison or otherwise under duress, is the third of the Skripal secrets the government has allowed to slip out. By naming Chapman, the British government and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), which was responsible for Sergei Skripal since he had arrived in England, had made Chapman the first and only source of public evidence of their fate.
The British press have not investigated this for more than four years. …
Either both Skripals were murdered by UK’s Government (presumably after 26 June 2019) in order to prevent UK’s guilt to be able to become known to the public, or else they had been given new identities and sent to New Zealand, as the UK rumor-mill has alleged. However, even if they are in another country, are they still in prison? Why does the public accept the UK’s — and Western media’s — constant lies? Whom is The West actually serving, in this matter? Is it ONLY the armaments firms, who sell to these Governments?
Serves them right for their betrayal… And dead “moles” tell no tales!…
The Skripals and Litvinenko’s stories are part of the dodgy trivial operations of the little brits Island to undermine the Russian political image, but now in unprecedented jubilation after its dreamed scenario became a reality to inflict serious damages over Russia using a sacrificial proxy army of fascist regime of Ukraine. That jubilation would be cut shortly by Moscow on its way to victory.
Russia should formally lay a petition in UN human rights commission to investigate the disappearance of the Skripals while under the protective custody of thr British government to shed light on what had actually transpired over the malicious allegations of attempted murders by use of state-made poison.
GOOD
Dawn Sturgess, the junkie with chronic health issues, eventually had her Coroner’s Inquest, recently. She allegedly found a bottle of ‘Eau de Novichok’, the military strength, nerve agent, that is so lethal, that all who come in contact with it, survive, unless they have other health concerns.
At a time when Boris Johnson was Foreign Secretary and Bellend Pussy Brigade, were all over the story, using a script, that Disney would have been proud of.
John Helmer, published an article, just last week, with regards the Coroner’s Inquest into the case. Funnily enough, the lawyer, representing the Skripals, could not confirm whether he had spoken or seen Julia or her father, when presenting evidence, in the court.
So now you have the the Durham Investigation, coming to a close, and focusing on the Steele Dossier. The inquest into Dawn Sturgess and the resignation of Boris Johnson, who was Foreign Secretary, then Prime Minister, with a serious psychological problem, to anything concerning Russia. Is the reason that there are so many skeletons in his cupboard, relating to his dirty work in supporting Clinton and interfering with an American Election? Not just the 2016 election? What makes Boris panic and why are so many Conservative Donors, exiled, Russian oligarchs, living in the SW3 postcode area?
Very well said, AM.
That US tran Admiral looks hotter than you.
Whatever floats your boat. However, you might be a tad too old for him.
Unfortunately in the mucky world of the intelligence services you will find many double headers . To get a realistic idea of how Mi6 works during the 1970s a programme series called Smiley’s people screened on BBC in England. Its in my view the closest to how that department actually works or did during the old days. Once you are No longer of use to British intelligence they will burn you. If you try to speak out just like David sheller you will be sent to prison or committed to a psychiatric ward!
They don’t exist just a buncha smiling actors living happily ever after, get a life
Me has thought for some time now that sites like Moon over Alabama and ZeroHedge are run by “former” intel. agents, as they seem to have access to more, better information than the rest.
That is to say you don’t need to be brilliant to analyze events better than the experts.
That we know. What we don’t know is how these sites obtain their information.
That’s the real question.
Why would sites, which seem to present events as they really are, be run by spooks?
I could argue they are limited hangouts or they are just another aspect of divide and rule,
but you’d have to ask them: how and why they do it.
Julia Skripal joins Julian Assange in enjoying the wonderful benefits of “democratic, law-abiding” UK!
He betrayed his Motherland, Mother Russia, and he deserved everything! Let the whole family die!
Here’s another example for you, the Jews even kill their own after they use it!
Lenin, Nemtsov, Skripal ……..
An infinite number, and people do not get smarter, each of them thinks that he is special, he will not be killed!
pizdet zchlob—-you are trash!
never trust an anglo
Ask Truss what has happened to the Skripals. She will be flumaxed for an answer, because she knows the UK has murdered them. !!
You know Lizard Truss, she’ll claim they’re living safely in Scotland, and point at Iceland on the map…nodding confidently.
I’ve called bullshit since the alleged polonium poisoning of Litvinenko. The FSB wouldn’t use such stupid methods for eliminating someone. The unfortunate either dies on the spot or “disappears” into thin air.
The mob on Pirate Rock are incapable of speaking the truth. The history of the degenerate and disgusting angloZionaZi empire of shit is as sordid as any. Any day now the goat hoofed “queen” is going to snuff it and then watch the island monkeys go ape.
The Skripals were exfiltrated from the car park of The Mill just after 3:30pm on Sunday 4 March. Shortly thereafter, Yulia was taken by helicopter to Fairford Airforce Base and flown to the US for debriefing. Sergei was taken overland to south west London where he spent the night. The following day Sergei was helped to gain access to Heathrow through the perimeter fence and he then boarded a flight directly back to Moscow. (This was where Nicolai Glushkov got involved and why he was murdered by MI5 the following week).
The British finally confirmed what had happened to Sergei a few weeks later when the plane that had flown him out, returned to Heathrow. A sniffer dog search of the plane, confirmed that Sergei had flow out on that plane (and caused a diplomatic ‘incident’, that has never been explained by the UK).
At the end of May, Yulia also returned to Russia but made the video at Fairford on her way back. Upon her return to Russia, she was reunited with her finance (Stepan).. they have lived quietly together ever since and Sergei is now a grandfather.
It is a long story but basically Sergei had been working in the UK since 2010. The UK found out what he was doing in 2016 … Sergei’s last 18 months in the UK were very dangerous which was why Russia launched the scheme to exfiltrate him and get him back to Russia.
Everything the British have ever said about the affair has been a complete pack of lies. There never was any nerve agent (except from Porton Down).
what can you expect from double agents?