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Russian spies detained in The Hague were planning cyber break-in at Swiss lab

dutchnews.nl

31–40 of 148 posts

Re: Russian spies detained in The Hague were planning cyber break-in at Swiss lab

#31

They weren't spies, they were tourists. We get them all the time here in the UK.

Just walking around, doing nothing suspicious and carrying nothing special.

Almost certainly. My guess is that they were innocent geometry fans, visiting 'Escher in het Paleis' - a permanent exhibition of the works of Maurits Cornelis Escher located in a former Royal palace. It's pretty cool.

https://www.holland.com/global/tourism/destinations/the-hagu...

Re: Russian spies detained in The Hague were planning cyber break-in at Swiss lab

#32
Quite believable. Russian gov. has a motive to interfere with OPCW investigations, and anything that can sow more doubt, fear, confusion or distraction is good as to their strategy post-Chemical attacks that gain publicity. The final report on Douma attack is yet to be released, so it would not be late to create needless problems for the investigation, and I trust OPCW to not make up stuff about hacking attempts certainly more than secret services or Kremlin. It's a fine international organization. If anything, Kremlin is probably more interested now that OPCW gained responsibility to point fingers at perpetrators a few months ago.

Re: Russian spies detained in The Hague were planning cyber break-in at Swiss lab

#33
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Perhaps they even had WMDs on them..." I downvoted you for this. That isn't suggested anywhere and there are enough unsubstantiated accusations flying around without people starting a few more.

Wasn't this comment (the whole thread, really) just sarcasm?

People need to be more liberal with /s

Re: Russian spies detained in The Hague were planning cyber break-in at Swiss lab

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Perhaps they even had WMDs on them..." I downvoted you for this. That isn't suggested anywhere and there are enough unsubstantiated accusations flying around without people starting a few more.

He wasn't suggesting that they actually had WMDs on them. He was drawing parallels to a high-profile previous instance of government officials lying about "enemies" in an effort to create support for wars that further their own ends. But I think you knew that.

He did however suggest that the UK, Dutch and Swiss agencies can't be trusted in this case, which is beyond laughable. It implies that another actor would have tried to kill former Russian agents and UK citizens with a chemical weapon.

Why would anyone in the west go to such lengths to frame Russia in this? It'd be like kicking a kid that's on the ground. They have nothing to gain from it.

Adding to that, the bluntness and stupidity of these operations fits the style of Russian agencies very well. They don't seem to be very good at covert operations anymore as they failed to adapt to modern technology.

Re: Russian spies detained in The Hague were planning cyber break-in at Swiss lab

#35
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just walking around, doing nothing suspicious and carrying nothing special.

Well, carrying whatever some secret service said they were carrying (and which we should take their word for it) in an ongoing effort to revive the Cold War... Perhaps they even had WMDs on them...

Who knows if they were carrying anything. The Novichoc bottle probably just magicked itself to Sailsbury and they were just GRU agents with passport numbers differing by one digit on a happy holiday to see the Cathedral twice. Or maybe not.

Re: Russian spies detained in The Hague were planning cyber break-in at Swiss lab

#36
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Perhaps they even had WMDs on them..." I downvoted you for this. That isn't suggested anywhere and there are enough unsubstantiated accusations flying around without people starting a few more.

Wasn't this comment (the whole thread, really) just sarcasm?

Original comment was from Britain, so yes.

But let´s face it, if the Americans realized just how often the British are being conversationally sarcastic at their expense, it wouldn´t be Russian invaders that we´d have to worry about. Fortunately the accent cues don´t seem to get picked up that often.

Re: Russian spies detained in The Hague were planning cyber break-in at Swiss lab

#38

Yeah, we, Russians, are so stupid so decided to kill the guy who was in our prison several years ago (why did not we do that then?) with a top Soviet chemical weapon which is like droping a nuclear bomb to kill a single person. There is a information war happening to desecrate Russian Federation in the eyes of the world and nothing more.

You chose the wrong pill my friend

Re: Russian spies detained in The Hague were planning cyber break-in at Swiss lab

#39

Yeah, we, Russians, are so stupid so decided to kill the guy who was in our prison several years ago (why did not we do that then?) with a top Soviet chemical weapon which is like droping a nuclear bomb to kill a single person. There is a information war happening to desecrate Russian Federation in the eyes of the world and nothing more.

That is one of the interesting things about all this - but there are also much easier ways to do false flag operations.

The evidence of this and previous assassination attempts is either there´s some idiot at the top of Soviet intelligence who just has to be creative, or far more likely the whole point is to send a very public message to the rather large Russian diaspora, that no matter how far they run, Mother Russia is looking over their shoulder.

For that purpose, a quiet inconspicuous assassination would be totally pointless.

Re: Russian spies detained in The Hague were planning cyber break-in at Swiss lab

#40

Yeah, we, Russians, are so stupid so decided to kill the guy who was in our prison several years ago (why did not we do that then?) with a top Soviet chemical weapon which is like droping a nuclear bomb to kill a single person. There is a information war happening to desecrate Russian Federation in the eyes of the world and nothing more.

Why not use chemical weapons? Kim's brother was assassinated by VX for example. So it's not really out of character for autocrats.

Chemical weapons are easy to use in quantities that ensure limited effect.

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