Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok
bbc.com
bbc.com
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.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Sinister insinuation about astroturfing is the internet's favorite pastime. The overwhelming majority of this, as far as we can tell from countless hours looking at the data, is pure imagination.
Is it possible that the manipulation is so sinister and so clever that it leaves no traces we can see in the data, and yet thousands of internet commenters see what we don't? Sure it's possible. But following that path means abandoning evidence. That way leads to the wilderness of mirrors. The only sane way to look at this is to require some evidence, some objective peg of some kind (we'll take anything!) to hang your suspicions on. The presence of opposing viewpoints, downvotes, and flags on divisive issues is no evidence at all. It just means that the community is divided.
As far as I can tell, the psychological phenomenon driving this phenomenon is that people are deeply reluctant to take in how wide the range of legitimately opposing views is. We're probably hard-wired to see the world as much smaller than it is. Bring us all, with that hard-wiring, into a community of millions of people on the internet, and the inevitable result is that people see spies, shills, astroturfers, and foreign agents everywhere. No—what you're seeing is that there are a lot of humans with very different backgrounds from yours. And on any issue with an international dimension, multiply that phenomenon by a hundred.
I've written about this a zillion times: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... See also https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... and https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... for how often I repeat myself.
There are some specifics to my use case, take this with a grain of sault. Hope this helps sorting genuine Putin-lovers from Kremlin bots.
Come on people, apply some common sense and stop the hysteria.
At my previous company I dealt with all the scraping bots for 15 years, in the end I even banned all of Tor and many of the commercial proxy network providers, with the justification that our site (CSE) didn't need anonymous posting because there was nothing sensitive and no private information on it. But I couldn't ban dynamic IP addresses for more than a few minutes since all the abusers originating from them happily obtained a new address within seconds and continued the scraping, rendering the IP address pool used by their provider completely banned from using our site.
IP addresses are blocked in a different context but land on the same list.
Still, to answer your question, dynamic IP addresses can be sticky. Where I operate, some ISPs lease the same IP address for each IP lease renewal. The only way to get an IP address is to wait until the lease expires by e.g. switching off the router.
Edit: I've now had a chance to examine this data. It turns out that the IP ranges in that list are so broad as to cover more than 50% of the posts on HN.
Will you provide that data for independent review?
Edit: it's not that you shouldn't be trusted. The issue is the old “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” For example, what if a large segment of the user base, that regularly contributed extraordinarily positive engagements, existed solely for the opportunities to frame certain conversations, even in the slightest, or even in preparation for something in the distant future.
And there's a third reason: sooner or later (maybe we're already there, maybe not yet) we have to assume a sufficiently smart manipulator (SSM) who's able to do whatever they want and be indistinguishable from a legit user. This is exactly what your phrase alludes to, I think: "regularly contributed extraordinarily positive engagements, existed solely for the opportunities to frame certain conversations". Once we're past that SSM threshold, all we can do is fall back on what the community ought to be doing anyway: answering false information with correct information, answering worse arguments with better ones, preserving community-ness without falling into war.
Since that's the only long term solution and it's what we want anyway, we might as well be practicing it now.
The theory behind SSM seems well thought out.
I think it would be helpful to enlighten people about the SSM when noting that a response is breaking the rules for an accusation of astroturfing.
For me, I think a brief explanation that well formed arguments are the only defense against an SSM would have removed a feeling of helplessness derived from reading your initial comment. And instead, lead me down a path which could really be helpful.
And it's fun to extend in the obvious ways. For instance, what if a SSM (an 'essessum', as they are often referred to in the technical literature) is orchestrating a campaign to write comments insinuating astroturfery into HN threads? After all, taken as a group such comments look very much like the kind of commentary a nefarious corporate or state actor might promote, as pointed out by the shillologists themselves! A curious and under-explored connection.
It's just that we need to have some evidence, something objective to go on, before we ban people. Absent that (<-- note that I said absent that), what one is encountering on the internet is a gigantic Rohrschach diagram, in which people routinely see the opposite of what they like or identify with. This internet experience is like being surrounded by demons of one's own creation: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
Sock puppet accounts and vote manipulation are not what I understood BrianOnHN to be talking about upthread. Maybe one could adapt the point to those cases though. Imagine someone who was coordinating inauthentic behavior so cleverly that we couldn't detect it at all. Fortunately I don't think we're there yet—but of course we wouldn't know it if we were. Either way, just imagine for a moment that this is the case. What are our options? The way I see it, we have two:
1. Go after each other based on subjective interpretations of whatever deviousness we imagine we see;
2. Have a functioning community with a healthy immune system based on clear thinking and responding to bad arguments with better arguments.
Surely we all choose #2, at least in our better moments. The key insight here is that #2 doesn't depend on what manipulators, even the cleverest manipulators, do. It depends on us. I'm not saying that it's the only defense we have against manipulation; I'm saying that if the day ever comes when it is the only defense we have, well, it's what we ought to be doing anyway, so we should work at getting good at it now.
I don’t think it’s possible. We have huge amount of evidences. This article alone has 150 references: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency They include analysis of internet activity of state-sponsored trolls, insider leaks, and even documents from US courts.
Are all companies selling such services charlatans?
Not sure I buy it. It's well established that you can buy followers, reviews, positive comments and even stories on all large public platforms, and they are quite public about it.
I can't speak about other forums but as far as I'm aware there's one outfit that sells HN votes and comments and stories. What their customers don't seem to realize is that using that service will get them banned here. At this point I figure the spammers know this too, but since people still buy from them, they probably don't care. I doubt they get much repeat business though.
I ran a small (1 mln pageviews/month) online Russian-speaking community since 2003 and since 2014, my main preoccupation are Kremlin bots.
The population in Russia is mostly anti-Putin, they just do not speak up, because the state made sure they feel isolated.
It was long believed, even in US, that Lukashenka had the majority. In reality, he faked all elections since 1994.
Once his deeds became hard to ignore even for pathetically peaceful Belarusians, all the population turned against him. Gosh, the exit poll in my voting station recorded only one vote for Lukashenka among 358. I was there watching the exit poll for a couple of hours. I fully trust the organizers, but one in 358... I could not even imagine it.
Same for Russia.
P.S. Yes, I have a Belarusian passeport. Yes, I run a Russian-speaking community site. Pass on.
I think he did rig elections but he might have had majority already, which makes his numbers look so unrealistic or he is just plain stupid to not even rig elections to make them look believable.
I do really sympathize with the Belarussian people though, every community should get a say on who represents them.
I am from Kazakhstan. If you've ever heard of it, would you consider it to be an autocratic state? Because according to the official results our beloved leader received 98% of votes in an election a few years back. Now that's an unrealistic number for sure.
https://www.alux.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/25-insane-cr...
You are assuming someone has an overview of the rigging being done. It's probably more chaotic than that. If 1000 different people are chucking opponents' votes into furnaces, how do you coordinate hitting that number?
He would if he wanted his quiet dissidents to feel isolated and his loud ones to be that much easier to find.
It's not that much different than other leaders declaring there are no gay people in their country.
That part is pretty well established by now.
Coincidentally, he established again a level of support a couple percentage points above Putin, who received "just" 78% last election.
Putin's approval rating is actually pretty high even when measured by NGOs sponsored by the "West". You'll be surprised, but it is quoted to be 60% in July 2020. [1]
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_image_of_Vladimir_Putin
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 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.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/putin-facing-growi...
https://www.statista.com/statistics/896181/putin-approval-ra...
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/05/06/putins-approval-ra...
And I am not saying Putin did or didn't order the poisoning of Navalny. I am just saying he is not the only one with motive/opportunity contrary to popular belief pushed in the mainstream media propaganda.
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.
There’s a thing that you should understand about Russia.
Here it goes: Russia is a huge country and Moscow is only a part of it. A small and the richest part. Moscow is basically a country inside the country. It has almost nothing to do with Russia. And the overwhelming majority of the information you are getting is coming from Moscow only.
The polls, the internet blabbering, the protests happen in Moscow, mostly (do notice that I said “mostly” before calling me a liar. I’m well aware of the exceptions, believe me). All of the money is there as well - all the cash flow through the capital. All the money from regions flow through Moscow and only a small portion of it goes back.
People from Moscow mostly look down upon the people from the regions. Consciously or not. Some of them are outright aggressive towards the “country folks”. Many of them believe that Moscow is “feeding the regions”, and it should stop, because people there are lazy and not smart enough. I’ve had conversations like this with Muscovites during my life there, it was hilarious.
The rest of the country is concentrated on their own lives. The majority of them earn something around $300USD a month that barely allows them to live from pay check to pay check. Teachers, doctors, you name it. That’s the salary of low-skilled workers in Moscow.
These people realise that changing the president won’t help them, but in fact might make their lives miserable. And they are not wrong - I can only imagine what may start after the change of leadership and what consequences for the regions it might have.
This country has its roots in the USSR. The change in the headquarters won’t replace the people in charge in the regions - at least it won’t happen immediately. And if/when it does, the majority of the replacement would be just the same people from the same ruling party (or what’s left of it). That’s how things work in Russia, that’s how it’s always been, since 1917. That’s the system that we have. That’s us, Russians, who are the system, and the president is only a small part of the problem.
The majority of Russians either don’t use Internet or use it for social networking only.
The majority of Russians don’t have an international passport (the document that allows you to travel abroad). Why would they? They will never have the money to travel.
The majority of Russians that I know, people from outside Moscow, vote for Putin. Some of them do that because they support him and the ruling party, but the most of them (as per my personal experience) just believe that he’s a lesser evil. I can’t blame them for that.
There’s more to that. What I’m trying to say here is - Russia is far more complex and diverse than you guys might think. It’s not very obvious even for many Russians. So please, don’t downvote people who say things that are against your agenda simply because of that fact. Their reasoning might be more subtle than you think.
What you might want to do to better understand them is to ask them. They know better than you about the situation over there, the historical reasons and consequences. The only thing that you probably need to ask them first is where are they from. If they are from Moscow, chances are they are biased.
It seems that holding joint parades, signing secret pacts, sacrificing Comintern, etc, still did not help much.
Neither did appeasement. The correct response to Ribbentrop's suggestions was war on Germany, just like the correct choice at the Munich agreement was war on Germany. Beyond that, you're just choosing between bad options.
Why? Because they mostly watch Russian TV (those Russian WW2 serials are addicting). The propaganda in the Russian TV talk shows and news is very well done.
It is just like any other echo chamber. Just like watching Fox News,listening to Limbaugh in US, etc.
There are echo chambers for all political spectrums and all countries.
Avoiding some topics in fear of insulting/upsetting other party, or in context of social media in fear of downvotes/flags, is the main cause of these modern echo-chambers.
Why would it be surprising this might also be the case for many Russians, with an existing tradition of hostile international relations with the West, and more repressive and corrupt governments, especially when many Russians also felt a lot poorer before Putin arrived?
And your conclusion is to avoid politics with your in-laws, so you can stay in your own echo chamber. Well done...
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?
If you are worried about astroturfing, you might email hn@ycombinator.com. They're pretty good overall at taking care of this kind of stuff.
EDIT: I literally drink heavily due to the fucking russians. Russia and china should be nuked to the ground. Fucking basic tactics. Fuck these pieces of shits.
oh lol Dang is a russian operative. What could be better. My fucking post is flagged already. What could be worse. Fuck this network; ruled by russia and china, it seems. ADIOS. Good win fuckstar communist cockholes.
Did you somehow miss all the Apple vs Epic posts over the last few weeks?
They're not the most competent, either [1]. It's been two decades since Putin first came to power. That sort of cronyism corrodes any bureaucracy.
What really derails the conversation is needlessly tone-policing people. People have a tendency of only doing that to opinions they disagree with; so in practice it's just another way to start a flamewar.
“ 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]”
I'm specifically worried that the most dangerous thing about Coivd-19 is that it woke up the world to how much damage an infectious virus can cause. Technology is now at the point where you can engineer a virus like this in many university labs with maybe a team of a dozen or so and low millions of dollars of funding. That's potentially within reach of major terrorist organizations. If you're just lashing out at the world it's tough to get more bang for your buck so to speak.
Fortunately, the circles of educated, STEM type of people and radical Islamic militant types are largely exclusionary.
that is a very dangerous assumption to make.
Because the goal is reaching the goal, not the process.
Undoubtedly, if s terrorist group has access to this stuff, they won't reject the idea of using it just because driving a van or yielding a knife might appear simpler.
We're talking about lines of thinking that planned hijacking three commercial airplanes simultaneously to fly them into high visibility targets.
How is spreading poison something that's outlandish when compared to that?
And also, arguably this case is already the doing of a terrorist group. I mean, the end goal obviously was to get opposites to think twice for fear of risking their lives.
And, IIRC, most recent terrorist attacks have been committed by isolated individuals who radicalized, and they only used means that a motivated regular person could assemble. They didn't have the material backing of any organization sophisticated enough to manufacture a military nerve agent.
Though, I suppose if a specialist like a chemist got radicalized, then we might have a lone-wolf attack with a sophisticated poison.
It's a way for Putin to publicly murder someone without having to say he did it.
The whole point is that this is hard to replicate.
In my experience, the US is facing an existential crisis stemming from a loud segment of the population, emboldened by Trump, that believes and promotes propaganda in a way that I thought was reserved for third world dictatorships.
I'm terrified of the day after the elections. If the left wins then, we risk retaliation from the gun-and-violence-glorifying right. If the right wins, then we still face violence from the same group at the inevitable mass protests.
Edit: the fact that the president can promote essentially unheard of networks, with an already questionable record, as "real news" (OANN, and Breitbart before that) demonstrates the ease of which the propagandists are operating. Once again, something that I would have considered unheard of, even in a third world country.
The right wing is an extreme minority that has obtained influence mostly by hacking the system. Anyone who stands up to them and patches the exploits will have a post-facto mandate, but that only happens if they have the guts to do it ("it" being things like passing airtight restrictions on legislative procedure; packing the bench; and dismantling the means by which representation is warped, like the electoral college or the filibuster).
This is why as a liberal I have little faith in Biden, Harris, Pelosi, or Schumer.
I also think that this "standing up" can start right at home.
For example, as my grandparents "number one grandchild," I informed them that the reason why I haven't talked to them for months, and have no intention of being a part of their future, is because they support Trump.
Will this be a good or bad move on my part? I don't know.
But, I do know that these right-wing extremists have no reservation using deadly force. And if ending a relationship with people that effectively raised me just might bring this to an end any sooner, then count me in.
Everything is a function of dosage. We don't know how much was in his tea, nor how much of the tea he actually drank. "In the tea" is also functionally equivalent to it being on his teacup, although that would be a more dangerous/aggressive attack. But they did use a doorknob as a vector in the UK attack.
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 approaches that can kill a man - no need to use sophisticated things like chemical weapons (which actually doesn't work as intended).
I hope that this story will be more clear pretty soon.
I'm from Russia, and I feel pain when people mix my country and my my country corrupt and criminal government.
+1000 - it often feels that people geniunely don't see any difference.
Here are some videos of the many videos from his anti-corruption campaign that made him popular and even a hero in the eyes of many Russians:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaika_(film)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Is_Not_Dimon_to_You
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQZr2NgKPiU
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjY3IMXMmVE
For more, see
He was banned from being a politician. Banned from media with any kind of reach, banned from elections. And we don't know how popular or not he actually is -- in a country like Russia accuracy of polling, any kind of statistics that is threatening to the dictator is one of the first victims.
>Third, I think no one here is actually benefiting from this tragic event...
A ridiculous statement. It's a signal to those who oppose Putin. In the light of what is happening in Belarus the signal is pretty clear -- Putin won't tolerate any real opposition, and he will not allow the situation to deteriorate to the level where he's actually threatened. "If you are willing to oppose Putin we will poison you with invisible deadly substances, and state doctors whose careers completely depend on their superiors won't treat you" is what it conveys. The goal is to have a chilling effect on the opposition's activities.
>simple approaches
Simple approaches are not as good for conveying a message. Using Chechens from Kadyrov's personal guard(in case of Nemtsov), expensive and hard to obtain isotope(in case of Litvinenko), or chemical warfare agents (in cases of Kara-Murza, Verzilov, Navalny, Skripal) indicates that's it's a state poisoning/killing, something only the state can do. It asks those who are not yet poisoned a question "Are you willing to fight the state/regime who's willing to kill you, make you disabled?
It's rather surprising that the regime doesn't yet target family members. Although I'm not completely up to date on the subject. Maybe it already does.
The opponents of Nord Stream 2 are clearly benefiting from it.
People should ask themselves why he was flown to Germany of all places. People should generally ask more questions and try to see behind all the quick finger-pointing.
Russia is not a world power and hasn’t been for a while.
> Russia is not a world power and hasn’t been for a while.
IIRC, they know that. That's why one of their main foreign policy objectives is to sow division and discord. Russia is weak compared to NATO as a whole, but it's strong compared to most individual NATO countries.
This is a scary situation.
And I believe HN/Ycombinator cater to the crowd that actually has the ability to disrupt this status quo. People that can really change things for the better.
Let's turn this ship around. Solving this problem can be how SV rewrites it's history to become known for more than attention draining and advertising schemes.
> The masses always will consume the propaganda, I don't see how this will ever be eliminated.
I could say that you have consumed leftists propaganda about Trump. But I won't.
> The masses always will consume the propaganda > How can we improve the results?
For starters, stop thinking of people as masses. They are capable of making intelligent decisions.
I think I understand why when choosing between Clinton and Trump people picked Trump. This was logical decision for many of Trump voters.
It would be very helpful for the current US democratic party to understand why people voted from Trump without pinpointig it to racism and homophobia and other sins.
He was an outsider/wildcard/Maverick and perceived smart businessman so his promises to clean up the corruption seemed more plausible than the entrenched status quo.
Now that his lack of business acumen, lack of general intelligence, non-existent diplomacy, zero empathy, and pure personal greed mixed with nepotism and corruption has been laid bare, I understand those who plan to vote for him next time round very little except through the lens of identity politics and hate/racism/xenophobia/epistemonophobia.
If you understand that Trump is at the red/orange level of consciousness, and so is a huge chunk of the American population, it's obvious why they will vote for him.
The stage red / stage orange worldview is pretty clearly what conservative Americans operate on, (and many are very on stage blue also).
The majority of liberal Americans are operating on stages orange and green.
And these are still all tier 1 of 2 tiers in the model.
I'm more interested in why Russia still tries to continue Cold War and fight the West. Contrary to what many Russians believe (or at least what they write online), West is not out to get them - other than to sell them shitty products made in China with crazy markup and make them watch internet ads.
Meanwhile China is slowly taking over Siberia with all the mineral and material goodies and they aren't doing anything about that.
Almost like it's more about pretending than about actual power.
As for why Putin still sees the West as the enemy, I don't think we can analyze Putin outside the context of the Soviet Union. He doesn't quite want to bring it back, but it's abundantly clear from his statements that he's never abandoned the idea that Russia has a claim to Eastern Europe (if not outright as its ruler, then certainly as a cultural protector), that he sees Western culture as encroaching on Russia's. From his perspective the West is out to get Russia. That's a legitimate geopolitical concern, of course; all states desire to protect their sovereignty and sphere of influence. What's unusual is that Russia has been able to wield so much military and cultural power relative to its small size, which is why we're even talking about it. I think it's incredibly scary just how much better Putin is at playing this game than the seemingly gullible Western powers.
Where it gets tricky is Putin's other side as a cold-hearted authoritarian gangster keeping a tenuous network of equally gangster oligarchs in place. If Russia ever becomes democratic and its judicial system restored, Putin would end up going the way of Saddam Hussein. (He's not going to get the Idi Amin treatment.) So you can't see Putin's political moves exclusively through the lens of statesmanship either; in choosing to be a ruthless kleptocrat, he's ruled out the possibility of a peaceful succession, and that's yet another complex factor driving the fate of Russia.
I think what's really going on is the usual. If you're stealing your country blind, manufacture foreign enemies and blame them, so the people at home think you're a hero instead of a villain.
I wouldn’t want to be a Baltic or small Arab nation in general during the transition, but, for example, France & Turkey are already starting to enjoy the new room for activities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Skripal
It's pretty much the ultimate flex, no? "We can kill anyone we want in any country, and you can't do shit about it."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/18/i-almost-died-...
Yes, awesome "flex" when they supposedly failed both times, with one of the deadliest substances known.
It just shows how gullible people who believe these stories are. They can't draw obvious conclusions and totally believe contradicting claims.
The only thing stopping him is the Chinese would probably see that as open season in the US and retaliate.
This is obviously not true.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novichok_agent
It's not the sort of thing you export.
"Novichok has, however, been known to most western secret services since the 1990s,[16] and in 2016 Iranian chemists synthesised five Novichok agents for analysis and produced detailed mass spectral data which was added to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Central Analytical Database.[17][18] Previously, there had been no detailed descriptions of their spectral properties in open scientific literature.[17][19] A small amount of agent A-230 was also claimed to have been synthesised in the Czech Republic in 2017 for the purpose of obtaining analytical data to help defend against these novel toxic compounds."
---- Rate limited, so I'll reply here to the next comment:
> You'd also have to ignore the additional evidence
Ok, but if you say "only Russia have them" you're saying something that is not true. They have been synthesized outside of Russia, so it's perfectly possible that others (militaries, secret services) have them. Amounts can also have been exported from Russia in the 50 years since they've been developed.
As for the additional evidence: again, damning. However, if someone (a state actor) wanted to damage Russia, it could also have managed to attract two Russian agents in the area to frame Russia. It's a conspiracy theory of course. But we're talking about conspiracies. The bottom line is that if we conclude it was Russia then we need to ask why it would a) put the most obvious signature on the deed; b) use the most brutal and dangerous method available, one that would immediately make a vast number of very rich and powerful countries into enemies. Maybe just to sow division over the implausibility of it? I don't know.
> The syntheses were carried out on a micro-scale in order to minimize exposure.
"We synthesized trace amounts so we can detect it if it's used on us" and "we have an active chemical weapons program making useful quantities of the stuff" are vastly different things.
You'd also have to ignore the additional evidence, like identified Russian intelligence operatives claiming to have been in town to look at a cathedral, and the motive.
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, but just to intimidate, but also it is completely possible that the "Novichok" is just a propaganda weapon of the West.
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.
https://www.euronews.com/2018/05/03/novichok-type-nerve-agen...
> Novichok has, however, been known to most western secret services since the 1990s,[16] and in 2016 Iranian chemists synthesised five Novichok agents for analysis and produced detailed mass spectral data which was added to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Central Analytical Database.[17][18] Previously, there had been no detailed descriptions of their spectral properties in open scientific literature.[17][19] A small amount of agent A-230 was also claimed to have been synthesised in the Czech Republic in 2017 for the purpose of obtaining analytical data to help defend against these novel toxic compounds.[20]
This cynical attitude would condemn the OP to a mundane life rather than being poisoned by a dictator. Opposition politicans in dictatorships are brave... And arguably suicidal...
In some cases, it happened literally in a revolution. In other cases, it was because a popular figure was assassinated.
Since a revolution is impossible against a major military power, it's likely that the latter is one of the only ways to inspire popular action (other than total collapse of the economy, of course).
It already happened there in 1990. That time the collapse of the soviet economy was in part caused by economic sanctions for the war in Afghanistan in 1979-1989: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Afghan_War This time the sanctions are for the war against Ukraine, which started in 2014: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War
One difference however, in 1985-1991 Russians were lucky to have a leader (Gorbachev) smart enough to not start a full-scale civil war when Moscow started to lose control, instead he managed to dissolve USSR with only moderate amount of bloodshed.
The bloodshed only happened in remote regions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Abkhazia_(1992%E2%80%93... The majority of population of modern Russia was unaffected. Probably for this reason Russians have not learned their lesson, elected Putin, and did nothing while he was transforming the country towards authoritarian dictatorship.
Many Russians would disagree with you [1]. And would you have appetite if you would be treated like the protesters are treated in Russia?
No, of course not! And that is exactly what I'm saying. I admire the bravery of people who stand up regardless.
You do not have to endorse his views, but they are at least clear and well-reasoned.
That's too bad.
> I'm an admirer of his bravery in the face of overwhelming odds.
Interesting. Are you consistent about that?
Consistent about admiring bravery in the face of overwhelming odds? I guess I'm about as consistent with that as most people are. It's not something I've given a lot of thought to. Why the inquisition? Is this a harmful sentiment somehow?
I mean the chances of actual popular uprising in Russia in near future is nil, yet Belarus can definitely embolden and make the opposition bigger, thus basically reverting the effects of all the opposition squashing Putin's efforts probably back to the 2012 state and making it a serious PITA for Putin.
After the war it continued under different names and for example:
>One failed attempt was on the life of Lisa Stein, a radio broadcaster in West Germany who in March 1955 only narrowly survived a dose of the lethal toxin scopolamine concealed in a box of chocolates
And I guess maybe the tradition continues. https://www.thearticle.com/the-kremlins-long-reach
It's also kind of weird they'd use such an apparently ineffective poison when prussic acid or ricin (or car accidents) would do the work rather more reliably. Novichunk didn't work on the Skripals either. Where are the Skripals anyway?
Whatever happened: one thing is for certain: Western media, the BBC in particular is an enormous basket of fail in reporting on anything out of Russia. No shortage of numskulls who have never actually visited the place or talked to any of its people who seem really sure of themselves though.
No there were no reasons to believe Berezovsky poisoned Litvinenko.
Litvinenko was the one who revealed attempt to kill Berezovsky.
Berezovsky and Litvinenko worked together against Putin.
There was no motive for Berezovsky to kill Litvinenko. In addition to that:
Berezovsky was far less powerful when Litvinenko was poisoned. Obtaining polonium was not trivial for Berezovsky.
And finally, UK police found who poisoned Litvinenko, it was Andrei Lugovoi who is currently a member of parliament in Russia. There are no connections between Lugovoi and Berezovski, but obviuosly there are connections between Lugovoi and Russian government. In fact, Lugovoi was given a medal for "serving the fatherland" some time after the poisoning.
No, Berezovsky did not poison Litvinenko, and you are spreading conspiracy theories.
The evidence: Litvinenko and Berezovsky had a falling out, and Litvineko's newest scheme was to run blackmail on various russian oligarchs, possibly including Berezovsky[0]. Berezovsky was no angel and is well, nobody ever proved it, but was strongly suspected to have assassinated an unauthorized biographer[1] (whose book "Godfather of the Kremlin" everyone should read to understand recent Russian history). Lots of people besides me have suggested as much. [2] Berezovsky certainly attempted to use the Litvineko death to his propaganda advantage; he could as easily have done it himself, or suggested such actions might be useful to some other oligarch in Litvineko's sights.
I'm well aware of who British propaganda and Litvinenko blamed: I just don't uncritically accept these assertions. The possibility is certainly there that the standard assertion here is baloney, just as the possibility the Novichok tale is not entirely accurate. Western media blames Putin and "the Russians" for everything from Donald Trump to when the foam goes flat in their coffee; if Russian intelligence were so all fired competent, you'd think they'd have been able to take over America, steal some of its industries or like do some obvious projections of power that I don't need Rachel Maddow tier conspiracy theories to believe. Or at least, you know, conquer Kharkiv or something.
[0]https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/dec/03/russia.world
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Klebnikov
[2] https://original.antiwar.com/justin/2010/12/13/wikileaks-con...
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2006/12/04/alexander-litv...
So technically he is not THAT bad in comparison.
German chancellor is elected by Bundestag and not directly by the people.
I guess in terms of USA that would be like Democrats and Republicans coming up with a president.
That's totally normal, and happens in a lot of places. For instance, in Canada, you vote for your local representatives (MPs), the party that ends up with the most MPs (roughly speaking) gets their leader installed as Prime Minister. Then, of course, the Head of State is actually the Queen who's represented by the Governor General, who is in turn nominated by the Prime Minister.
None of that matters, of course, wrt: freedom.
Right...
And while it is possible to blame Putin for this Navalny's incident, he isn't the only one with motive/opportunity. It is actually very sad that some HN readers sometimes have a strong tendency to blame Trump/Putin/Another for Everything. I get that they are very unpopular figures among liberals/progressives, but let's at least try to pretend to be more objective for a minute. How about maybe for a second or a little longer just think about it before proclaiming that clearly it's Putin? How about being maybe a little bit more self-critical for a minute? Maybe you don't have all the information and all the facts yet? Or maybe some facts aren't facts yet, and maybe there is a massive propaganda campaign (BBC/CNN/etc.)?
In my opinion, there is an alternate hypothesis. Putin is trying to finish building the last 6 km of the gas pipeline to Germany. It has been blocked by US sanctions for a long time. This incident adds fuel to the fire, and conveniently allows the US to impose more sanctions, and bend Germans (who actually want that pipeline because it is beneficial for Germany) to their will.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_image_of_Vladimir_Putin
It could also have been his kids. Maybe they feel neglected. Is there any evidence of this? The similarity of this attack to the one on Skripal a couple years ago objectively points to the Russian government being involved as the most likely possibility. Naturally most of the information around this is and will remain out of the public eye, but claiming that the "It's Russia" and "It's the US" hypotheses are anywhere close to being equally likely is, at best, naive.
Trump has done nothing but cater to Russia, which has been discussed at length. Lookup Russian bounties on us soldiers.
And whatever doubt-sowing your attempting can easily be disregarded by Occam's Razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor
https://www.ft.com/content/941a9a2e-88df-4a66-9b3c-670bb7eb4...
Perhaps there's an innocent explanation why three GRU agents traveled to Salisbury multiple times, including the day that Skripal was poisoned but lied about their reason for being there, their identities, and their connection to the Russian military?
https://www.dw.com/en/second-skripal-poisoning-suspect-ident...
Putin's grip isn't as tight as you think.
I'm not denying that Navalny was poisoned with Novichok. The question is who ordered it. I'm not convinced it was Putin.
> 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.
Not saying that Putin didn't order it, just pointing out that the group of people with motive and means to do it is bigger than just him.
So it's not an oligarch thing but reaches the highest levels of Russian government
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
Russia assassinates even unimportant people for revenge and intimidation. For instance: they hired assassins to kill a bunch of nobodies in Ukraine in 2016 because they'd helped supply Georgia with Ukraine-made antiaircraft weapons that had been used against Russia when they invaded in 2008.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/31/world/europe/russian-assa...:
> Russia Ordered a Killing That Made No Sense. Then the Assassin Started Talking.
> ...The war lasted only five days and ended with a crushing victory for Moscow. But in many ways, the conflict was an embarrassment for Russia’s intelligence services. Years earlier, Ukraine had secretly sold sophisticated antiaircraft systems to Georgia, allowing for the effective defense that I had seen....
> For Mr. Putin — who has described Russians and Ukrainians as “one people” — it was an act of bloody treachery.
> “We don’t know who decided to deliver equipment and weapons from Ukraine during the conflict, but whoever it was, that person made a huge mistake,” Mr. Putin said at a news conference shortly after the war.
This method lets people know what tools they are willing to use on an adversary. And it’s also a signature “we did it” so you don’t have to guess who’s after you. It serves as a warning to any upstarts as well.
It’s not all that different from the Ndraghetta bombings up and down Italy in the late XX cent.
We haven't seen any of that. Your version of events seems highly unlikely.
There is at least "Smart vote" (aka умное голосование) initiative, that helped to beat government on some regional elections earlier.
Oh, and it's big election day in less than two weeks, so there is definetely a motivation for poisoning.
Sometimes you get steak and sometimes you get chocolate.
Not fair to call it a "false flag" though as there's no obvious "flag" attached to this event. It's not like anybody has claimed the attack. There's a whole world of possibilities beyond "Putin ordered it" and "false flag". But whoever did it, it does seem like Kremlin is covering for them so at least partially morally responsible.
They want everyone to know they did it. That's Putin's MO. Everyone knows he did it, and he knows everyone knows he did it. But there's still enough plausible deniability that it would be hard to conclusively prove. And ultimately he has his finger on the world's largest arsenal of nuclear ICBMs, so he knows there's absolutely nothing anyone can do about it. It's the same as the mafia leaving a severed horse head in your bed. It sends a message.
Instead we could use facts that are already known about e.g. Putin -- that he's an individual for whom sowing fear is more important than not being blamed, as the other similar poisonings have shown.
And no, I am not a Russian troll nor do I have any connections to Russia. Check my comment history. I am just sceptical that one would do this and not just shot someone they wanted to get rid of them.
Is Putin really that stupid or was it someone else?
The uncertainty you're trying to sow is in no way reasonable.
In other words, just apply occam's razor to the problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor
But I cannot imagine why would anyone do that to Navalny. First of (and this is very much arguable, but I'm just saying what is my opinion), I don't think he is any threat to Putin&friends. He has some supporters, but "opposition leader" is waay too generous, he isn't even treated very seriously by people who are against Putin, much less by Putin. So, some mundane harassment like police raids to his office... sure, why not? But assassinating him very publicly like that, when he wasn't even "in the news" (figuratively speaking) for some time? I have no idea, why would "the government" want it. He isn't anything new, he has no real power. And unlike Litvinenko or Skripal he isn't ex-GRU/FSB, so he isn't a "traitor" to any "interesting" agencies. Basically, I don't see why would his "enemies" (i.e. Putin&friends) even care about him.
His constantly embarrassing exposes where he demonstrates how much money they've fleeced from the Russian people don't count? e.g.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE1iw4seYt0&list=PLuBu40P6jU...
Or his videos demonstrating widespread voting fraud that's keeping "Putin and Friends" in power?
I like watching these videos, BTW, because I like how they are made, it's pretty fun. But are they "hurting" anybody? I doubt so.
A single assassination of Navalny gives much more bad publicity, than 100 years of Navalny & ФБК making "Он вам не Димон" kind of movies. If they care about the latter, they surely don't want the former.
Putin & co. is the simplest explanation. Why question it? Who else would stand to gain from this? Because they do gain from it: intimidating the opposition is the name of the game in a dictatorship.
Let me put it this way. There is a "perceived value" and a "real value" of assassination. So, if you want to send a message, "real value" is metric of people you want to get a message getting this particular message. Like if you are GRU/CIA/Medellin cartel (basically the same things) and you want every cartel member to know that traitors will be punished, you want it to be relatable for the other cartel members and gruesome. You don't really want it to be very much high-profile (which it must be to some degree if you want it to be gruesome, but only as a side effect).
"Perceived value" is what is "real" to complete outsiders unaware of situation. It is what will cause the resonance in BBC and among the people you really don't give a fuck about getting the message (and in case of Russia govt. — don't want to get the message: Russia absolutely isn't trying to tell the world there is a dictatorship, it wants for the outsiders to get exactly the opposite message, that there is "real competition", i.e. people like Navalny that are against the regime, but just don't have that much of a support).
So, to summarize, if you are Medellin cartel sending message to its members: maximize "real" minimizing "perceived". If you want to set up Medellin cartel: you maximize "perceived" and don't give a fuck about "real".
Now, what is real/perceived ratio in the case of Navalny? As I already said, this is my personal (pretty humble in this case, and not particularly strong) opinion, but my estimation is: very, very low. I don't know of any "people just like Navalny" (so it will be relatable), that are actually dangerous to the regime and need to get "a message". On the other hand, "perceived value" is very high: in fact, the moment Navalny gets to a hospital, everyone automatically assumes it is an assassination by the Russian govt, since he is such a prominent "opposition leader".
So, if I was GRU, I wouldn't want Navalny to be killed in an obvious way. If I was a CIA, I most likely would.
Your explanation requires too many assumptions, and fails to explain other facts of history - such as other people having been poisoned, or Putin et al doing other wildly unpopular things just for the sake of it.
Russia habitually invades the Norwegian, Danish and Swedish waters _just to show that they can_.
Your reasoning boils down to “if you can think of an explanation, it’s wrong”. The CIA furthermore has very little need for making Russia look bad right now. Russia is doing that all in its own.
P.S. I want to clarify, that I don't really blame CIA, it was just a way of simplifying the essence of what I'm trying to convey. I don't try to make any theories of what's happening, I'm acknowledging that I have no clue, because what I'm seeing is 2 political sides pointing at each other, shouting and swinging arms. All that I'm saying is that accepting "the simplest explanation because of Occam'z razon" here is stupid, because (unlike when setting up a physics experiment) the simplest explanation here is just words and pointing sides, the same as the more complex explanation, and I can think of dozens of "possible explanations" that all will be lies. So I don't pretend to know who poisoned Navalny (or even if he was poisoned, for that matter), but it would be baffling to me if it indeed was done under direct or indirect Putin's orders. So, I was only telling the GP that he is not alone in thinking this seems very suspicious. Indeed it does.
Most of you will likely disagree, based on their current public image vs. Russia's, but ask yourselves what the known facts are.
> One who has brazenly done this sort of attack before and has a very obvious recent history of silencing dissidents?
It is just "obvious" if you are a firm believer in accusations made by the "West".
Your baseless tinfoil skepticism is extremely useful to fascists like Putin who thrive off of spreading disinformation and uncertainty.
Do Western countries lie to benefit themselves geopolitically? Of course they do, but let's apply Occam's Razor here and not go looking for a global conspiracy when the answer and motivations are so blatant.
Considering Putin has had journalists and opposition leaders killed before, and the Russian government tried to prevent the opposition from leaving the country or seeing outside doctors, one has to choose an answer which makes the least assumptions:
* Would the Russian dictator once again attempt to murder his most prominent critic?
* Or would the German government... falsify the poisoning, even though he was hospitalized... as a false flag... but domestic inside of Russia... during a period where the West is collapsing and USA is run by someone who is likely under Russian control meaning triggering Russia into conflict would be to do so during a period when you are least likely to be backed up by the only other nuclear power with a capable enough triad to M.A.D./stalemate it out?
You can make the assumptions you want, but man your route seems to make a lot more of them.
That Islamist attack was very inconvenient for many powers that be, in Germany. Including the media. It has been quickly swept under a rug.
Living in Berlin you could barely notice, it ever happened at all. There was even some strong opposition to putting a monument/memorial to the victims.
Indeed, there have to be systemic issues.
https://www.faz.net/aktuell/finanzen/bafin-mitarbeiter-hande...