“It is HMG’s view that President Putin authorised the operation” to poison Sergei Skripal in March 2018, Jonathan Allen, DG Defence & Intelligence at the foreign office, told the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry today. It’s the most direct accusation against him yet by UK govt 1/ - ThreadSky

markurban.bsky.social • 167 days ago

“It is HMG’s view that President Putin authorised the operation” to poison Sergei Skripal in March 2018, Jonathan Allen, DG Defence & Intelligence at the foreign office, told the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry today. It’s the most direct accusation against him yet by UK govt 1/

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markurban.bsky.social•167 days ago

The UK government assessment is based on numerous factors, he explained: the sensitive nature of a nerve agent attack on a Nato member; the large scale of operations mounted by the GRU (it couldn’t be a rogue unit); and Putin’s legal position at the head of RU intelligence 2/

markurban.bsky.social•167 days ago

Mr Allen conceded “I don’t have a document or statement saying President Putin or anyone else that said they were responsible”. Instead he argued Putin and others pursued “a policy of denial” while simultaneously saying traitors deserved to die, and disparaging Skripal 3/

alexismac.bsky.social•167 days ago

This sounds vaguely familiar & recent. Somewhere in the USA ...

markurban.bsky.social•167 days ago

Russian disinformation, he argued, was designed to “throw dust in people’s eyes” by using ‘what about-ism’” and trying to offer misleading alternatives. Instead, Allen believes “the operation was undertaken with authorisation from the highest levels of the Russian state” 4/

markurban.bsky.social•167 days ago

From next week there will be closed sessions in which the intelligence underpinning these assessments, as well as sensitive aspects of the police investigation and Porton Down’s work will be examined in detail. But we won’t get a sense of that until the report itself appears /END

batbrewer.bsky.social•167 days ago

It's inconceivable that those guys would have been paraded on state TV talking obvious crap about how they just wanted to visit Salisbury Cathedral if they were rogue operators.

batbrewer.bsky.social•167 days ago

Plus Bellingcat etc unmasking them as GRU agents...

theenormousroom.bsky.social•166 days ago

I think Putin crossed the reddest red line of them all by using nuclear and chemical weapons on UK and by extension NATO soil.

I think he needs to be reminded of that.

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