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Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

bbc.com

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Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#301

Post by dilyevsky »

siliconvalley1 wrote: post #300
dilyevsky wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a secret russian government spends considerable resources on online astroturfing but there are large constituency of closet (or not so closet) putin supporters even among tech folks of 30yo and older (basically people who were alive and old enough to remember 90s and 80s)

Why would you think that there is a large number of Pro-Putin Pro-Political Assassination tech workers? This seems like a ridiculous statement.

It’s quite anecdotal but my sampling is rather large as I’ve worked with those people over multiple years and still have contacts there. Nobody would admit they approve of this assassination obviously same as mh17 but as long as putin maintains plausible deniability they’d be ok with supporting him

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#302

Post by siliconvalley1 »

SpaceRaccoon wrote: post #244
toxik wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like semantics, was it Putin that signed the order or did one of his henchmen? Don’t matter. This is the Nth novichok poisoning too. Putin is either complacent or participant.

It's an important distinction. > one of his henchmen There are various clans of power in Russia, and not all of them are loyal, or report, to Putin. Navalny had a lot of enemies. > complacent It's likely. The alternative could lead to some serious instability. For example, evidence suggests Kadyrov took out Nemtsov, but holding Kadyrov accountable could lead to chaos in Chechnya. Is it worth it? This is realpolitik.

You're failing occams razor. On one hand we have Putin who is very publically Navalny's primary antagonist who also has the means and obvious motive to poison him with Novichuk. On the other some nameless "enemies" who also somehow have the means to build a lab sophisticated enough to produce Novichuk without killing themselves or the people in a large radius of their lab and also access to Mercenaries/Assassins/ex-GRU/Spetsnaz agents with the talent to poison a very high profile person and not be caught?

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#303

Post by redisman »

gonzo41 wrote: post #21
m3kw9 wrote: post #4

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novichok_agent “ These agents were designed to achieve four objectives:[21][22] to be undetectable using standard 1970s and 1980s NATO chemical detection equipment; to defeat NATO chemical protective gear; to be safer to handle; and to circumvent the Chemical Weapons Convention list of controlled precursors, classes of chemical and physical form.[23]”

This is bad. But it was targeted. I worry about how easy it would be for terrorists to do something very bad with a large quantity of this stuff seeing it's so easy to move about.

None of those bullet points sounds like they would matter to terrorists. It's more of a tool for state-sponsored spies/assassins.

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#304

Post by lightgreen »

ibobev wrote: post #298

I'm not a chemist but it seems that Novichok is the poison with the worst track record. It was claimed that this is extremely dangerous military grade neuro agent, but currently from six people claimed to be poisoned with it only one died. I'm starting to wonder why the Russian secret services blamed using it against political opponents, try it again and again. It is completely possible that they want not to kill, bu…

> six people claimed to be poisoned with it only one died

We don't know how many people were poisoned and died, and death was attributed to natural causes.

Novichok agent is not something easily detectable.

In particular, in Skripal case, it was an accident that his daughter was visiting him, and they both found unconscious on the bench. Otherwise, it would be a cardiac arrest of 66 yo man, hard life, it happens, nothing unexpected.

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#306

Post by levleontiev »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #220
actionscripted wrote: post #91

If you ever wonder about the extent of Russia's online efforts consider that the comments on this HN thread might be part of things. Not saying anything in here is good/bad/other but you rarely see this level of flagged and down-voted comments in a HN thread.

Just wondering, do you think it more likely that: A) Russian-sympathetic people post their own sincere views B) Russians for hire in Russia are brought in on all forums/social media C) Russians use bots or non-Russian farms for the B)'s purpose?

B. Also it's named "Lahta" by the region where their office is .

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#307

Post by levleontiev »

sandworm101 wrote: post #137
actionscripted wrote: post #91

If you ever wonder about the extent of Russia's online efforts consider that the comments on this HN thread might be part of things. Not saying anything in here is good/bad/other but you rarely see this level of flagged and down-voted comments in a HN thread.

Russian fanboys, sure. Actual Russian security forces, doubtful. They aren't idiots. They aren't going to pick a fight on HN were things are so easily moderated/downvoted/flagged. The real agents work deep inside their facebook/twitter/whatsapp nests. What we have here are pro-russia but nevertheless amature activists.

>They aren't idiots Petrov and Boshirov with very similar travel documents and a lot of different evidences aren't idiots?

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#308

Post by pvg »

nomadnomad wrote: post #292
baybal2 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll tell you how they are cooked: 1. The legacy of 8 decades under a government practicing public polling under a gunpoint. 2. Only the most well fed, and carefree Potemkin villages can be surveyed. 3. The lack of any other genuine option other than saying "I back a complete joke "alternative" candidates," which are set up by the regime itself to play Pope Gapon 4. Plainly faked polls

I am not referring to fake government-run polls. I am referring to polling agencies that are very west-leaning, and even they can't blatantly lie about it. His approval rating as of a month ago is 59-60% [1][2][3]. In fact his approval rating after the annexation of Crimea was at all time high of 85%. Check the sources. Again, these are not government-run polls. Lots of good data on it (thanks to google): https://www…

Polling in developed democracies has errors of a few percentage points, even with extensive work done to improve the accuracy of the results, correct for various sampling biases, etc. What do you think the error bars of a poll in an authoritarian country are, especially one that asks 'Do you like the authoritarian leader'.

As to Crimea, plenty of Russians believe Crimea is Russian, including Navalny - the Russian opposition is neither monolithic nor does it always represent views that in lock-step with Western ones.

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#309

Post by stefantalpalaru »

itroot wrote: post #294

Guy from Russia here. Not an expert, but I feel the pain when my country looks so negative in the news. First, I wish Alexey fast recovery. Second, Alexey wasn't a popular politic figure in past time, I believe that his peak of popularity was in 2013-2015. Third, I think no one here is actually benefiting from this tragic event... the whole story just seems quite strange. Frankly, there a lot of more simple approache…

> I hope that this story will be more clear pretty soon.

Don't hold your breath. And even if something challenges the narrative, it might remain under the radar.

How many people have heard about this surprising turn of events in the Yushchenko poisoning case?

"University professor Lothar Wicke lost his job as clinical director at the Rudolfinerhaus Clinic amid controversy over claims which emerged during the Ukrainian election campaign that opposition candidate Victor Yushchenko had been poisoned. Wicke clashed with management over the clinic’s involvement in the media campaign about Yushchenko’s condition, which, according to Wicke, was billed as poisoning even before it had been diagnosed." - https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS014067360...

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#310

Post by agapon »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #266
koonsolo wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely believe you. A Russian colleague, who is living in EU for several years, found it justified that Russia invaded Poland back in 1940. We were all baffled.

*39. The alternative was likely German occupation of the whole region, and from that perspective their statement makes sense.

Which Nazi Germany did anyway, just a short time later.

It seems that holding joint parades, signing secret pacts, sacrificing Comintern, etc, still did not help much.

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