It is just another "targeted assassination" or "non-judicial killing". The papers are full of these. OK, the method was apparently unusual (the leaks from the investigation to the BBC, at least up until now, have not gone so far as to name the exact poison) but it leads to the same result as using a drone or one of the other more popular methods.
Interestingly, as I saw pointed out somewhere (not in the UK main stream media), the location of the incident is only a few kilometers from the UK's own bio weapons research labs.
Those who live by the sword . . .

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Perhaps they (the Brits) werent expecting him and his family to be assasinated, theoretically it could just be a statement from Moscow warning off future defectors. Its politically well timed, what with all the meddling etc, if anyone "involved" in that feels like whistle blowing, it would definitely put them off. It also shows that Moscow doesn't fear western criticism of the way it deals with its enemies.

You ignore the method, means & motive for a conspiracy theory.

As long as the likely culprit is anti west (Hamas, Iran, Syria, Russia) you give them the benefit of the doubt.

Not knowing that an assassination was planned is an intelligence failure.

But not expecting it at all after the numerous killings already?

It sends a strong signal. If you cross us, you will die horribly, and don't think the British government will be able to protect you. I doubt the number of Russians willing to pass secrets to the UK for £100k will have increased in the last few days.

If a more traditional method had been used, or if it had been made to look like a suicide or accident, it might have been more difficult to attack the father and daughter together, others in the vicinity wouldn't have been affected, there wouldn't have been a deployment of troops and likely wouldn't have been the proximity to Porton Down and associated suggestion of a home-grown attack. This method hasn't just disabled the two targets but disrupted the host country.

The BBC were reporting this morning that "only a handful of labs around the world could have made this substance"... yeah one of which is about 3 miles down the road from where the incident happened.

As somebody who's country has been occupied by 'friendly' Russian troops killing locals for 21 years due to fact that we were moving very slightly towards democracy (Czechoslovakia) - never expect anything good from Russian. Common citizens might be +-OK (apart from rampart alcoholism and f**ed up attitude to life in general), but politicians are a joke of a human being, worst of the worst scum.

Putin is at least very consistent - he only cares about 'Russia's interest' - meaning staying in power and keeping friendly oligarchs untouchable and richer. Don't mind him personally stashing billions of USD in (not only) Zurich's banks via his close friends of course. Things like human decency, democracy, freedom or respect for another human being or life are a joke there. You know, things that make the country we live in the greatest out there in my humble eyes. They don't mind seeing the world burn, not at all.

His attitude to this kind of spies is pretty well known (they should die very slowly in a public way). And what sends the message more loud and clear than using a nerve agent, killing also his family (the fact that all other family members died in recent years is probably not an accident). North Korea sent the same message few months ago, for exactly same reasons - big FU to everybody while doing internal cleaning publicly.

I am no friend of US and their usually pretty abhorable foreign politics, but in this game, compared to Russians, they are holy knights in shining armor. No sympathy for the devil.

Um, which game? Intelligence services? I don't think the CIA is wearing a shining armour, they aren't even knights by the furthest stretch of "chivalry"... they have a track record of torturing suspects to death. This guy died of hypothermia... slowly freezing to death over a two week period in a cell: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-interrogation

Ah, "Commie Lite" , all the rich Marxist flavour, but without the bloody aftertaste

Double agents for any country are pretty low. He went into service for his country, and then flat -out betrayed it. I'm surprised he wasn't killed immediately. I'm no fan of Putin or Russia, but this guy got what he had coming. Altho they should have left his daughter out of it.

To be fair to the UK intelligence services, he had already done time in Russia before being exchanged, they (secret services), probably did not care if he was assassinated or weren't expecting it to be carried out in such a public way. Perhaps Russia kept him alive as a bargaining chip for that initial exchange, with the intention of later assassination. We can speculate all we like, but we'll never find out. I just feel sorry for his family and the other innocent bystanders who were exposed to a deadly nerve agent.

Maybe he betrayed something he saw as being intrinsically wrong about his own country, the corruption, the dictator. Maybe he was very patriotic and did not like what is happening in Russia. We'll never find out what information he shared, but saying he deserved it is a bit low.

Yup, say want you want about Russia but they don't mess about where these things are concerned. At the same time there are thousands of ISIS fighters returning to Europe to be welcomed with reintegration programs and trauma counselling.

Playing devil's advocate, why leave the daughter out of it? It's most likely a more effective warning to others to target her and perhaps other family members too.

Leave it mate, we all know you must have withdrawal symptoms re your favorite subject by now but this thread doesn't need turning in your favorite direction. I personally think it should really be about what the title says, as it is an important subject on it's own.

Start a new thread or go back to those which were already contaminated.

What he did, selling out his fellow servicemen to another country, is treason, plain and simple. And historically, in many countries, including the UK, the punishment for treason is death.

Saying his daughter deserved to die would be low.

https://www.heritage.org/constitutio...ent-of-treason

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/10-crimes-...145300595.html

Look who can’t spot the difference between how Europe treats their traitors and how Russia treats theirs. Europe is toothless, soft and impotent, Russia isn’t. This is why the Crimea is now in Russian hands. It’s also the reason why Russia can get away with doing pretty much as they please.

So you want to live in a totalitarian state Loz? You could always move to Moscow!

on another note, the Kremlin mouthpiece issues a threat to all would be traitors: https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...e_iOSApp_Other

Because that’s exactly what I said.