We have a (EDIT - silly me he's not dead) nearly dead body, so a crime has clearly been committed. We have in the courts a sophisticated process for determining whodunnit and what they done with a high standard of evidence.

Given that the people accused of undertaking the killing are foreign state actors, that process is unlikely to be taken to conclusion. The situation is political, and the people who are publicising the information are closely involved with people who are hired to be _professionally untrustworthy_.

We don't have any evidence, and should judge the situation by what the response is. If it is understated and a censure of the Russians, the UK secret service are probably being truthful. If it ties in to some real action (ie, is used as justification for something that wouldn't otherwise make sense) then the UK secret service were probably lying. It isn't like the Russians would have revealed any new intent or capability with this incident.

This type of analysis is sorely lacking in the "which side are you on" comment. We should not lock in behind a western government doing something bad because they are pointing fingers at Russia. We've regretted doing that in the past - WMD and Saddam is a pretty cut and dried example (I have others, but they aren't as clear cut and a lot of people might not regret them).

I can see one example of what you're talking about and that is how Putin co-opted some prominent western anti-US-imperialists in service of his own agenda and his own imperial ambitions (setting up permanent bases in other countries, exploiting natural resources by means of war, killing innocent people by thousands, pretty much anything anti-imperialists abhor about the US). Enemy of my enemy... I guess. These people then talk about how Russia was invited by Bashar, or whatever and that makes it ok for it to bomb people there for years - but this is usually unstated, you just sense the implied sense of legitimacy and lack of criticism for Russia.

Many of these people have some followers that then repeats their talking points, or defer to their authority.