3 ms·

> they have plenty of people intelligent enough to do better Now, that's a very charitable assumption. I am not sure we have any evidence for that :-) > Given

> they have plenty of people intelligent enough to do better Now, that's a very charitable assumption. I am not sure we have any evidence for that :-) > Given how these stories over the poisoning have played out it certainly looks that way. But that would mean that they were provoking the Western countries to give them hell. I am the first to admit that I do not hold their intellectual powers in any high esteem, but even so, even for them, this sounds outrageously insolent and stupid.

neffy 8y ago
No, I would gently submit that they are provoking Western media to give them lots, and lots, of free publicity. Western countries are not going to give Russia any kind of hell that Russia´s rulers will really care about. Russia is a major gas and oil supplier to the entire of Western Europe.
foldr 8y ago
>But that would mean that they were provoking the Western countries to give them hell Gee, you think? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Russian_Federation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Ru... Putin clearly has no problem with the idea of provoking Western countries.
- azangru 8y ago
  Crimea is really very much of a corner case. First, it's not in a Western country. Second, the annexation happened soon after the Ukranian revolution, which made the legitimacy of the Ukranian government (and the very status of the Ukranian state) at that point uncertain. Third, there were various historical and political considerations muddying the issue (Crimea was given to the Ukraine by the head of the USSR only about a generation ago, and there was a general feeling of a historical injustice done by this act; there was a large Russian population in Crimea; and the revolutionary Ukraine was markedly nationalistic and anti-Russian, which probably pushed a large portion of the Russian-speaking Crimean population into the embrace of Russia). Smuggling a military-grade poison in Britain is quite a different matter.
  - foldr 8y ago
    The invasion of Crimea is a much bigger deal that the Skripal poisoning. Russia clearly isn't afraid of "provoking" Western countries.
    - azangru 8y ago
      Why is it a bigger deal? It could have been a bigger deal if Ukraine were a member of NATO, and the alliance had an obligation to respond. But as the things stand, why is it a big deal — for the US, the UK, Germany, France, etc.? (Skripals poisoning, in contrast, would imply a special operation on the soil of a sovereign Western country, using the tabooed chemical weapons. A concrete, old-school, physical action, as opposed to the more abstract propaganda wars or some shady online activities.)
      - foldr 8y ago
        >Skripals poisoning, in contrast, would imply a special operation on the soil of a sovereign Western country, using the tabooed chemical weapons. That's nothing Russia hadn't already done years before.
        azangru 8y ago
        And proudly signaled to the rest of the world that it was them that did it? What cases are you thinking about?
        foldr 8y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvine...
        azangru 8y ago
        Yes, the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko. Even the Wikipedia article says that the correct diagnosis — the poisoning by polonium-210 — was made to a large extent due to a happy coincidence: there happened to be a scientist in the facility where Litvinenko was treated who happened to have worked with polonium. Were it not for that coincidence, it is very possible the correct diagnosis would not have been reached, and the very investigation that followed would not gone very far. So I am not sure how Litvinenko poisoning is an illustration of an assassination attempt advertised as such to the rest of the world. On the contrary, it looks like a murder attempt that was intended to have never been solved.

neffy 8y ago

No, I would gently submit that they are provoking Western media to give them lots, and lots, of free publicity. Western countries are not going to give Russia any kind of hell that Russia´s rulers will really care about. Russia is a major gas and oil supplier to the entire of Western Europe.

foldr 8y ago

>But that would mean that they were provoking the Western countries to give them hell Gee, you think? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Russian_Federation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Ru... Putin clearly has no problem with the idea of provoking Western countries.

azangru 8y ago
Crimea is really very much of a corner case. First, it's not in a Western country. Second, the annexation happened soon after the Ukranian revolution, which made the legitimacy of the Ukranian government (and the very status of the Ukranian state) at that point uncertain. Third, there were various historical and political considerations muddying the issue (Crimea was given to the Ukraine by the head of the USSR only about a generation ago, and there was a general feeling of a historical injustice done by this act; there was a large Russian population in Crimea; and the revolutionary Ukraine was markedly nationalistic and anti-Russian, which probably pushed a large portion of the Russian-speaking Crimean population into the embrace of Russia). Smuggling a military-grade poison in Britain is quite a different matter.
- foldr 8y ago
  The invasion of Crimea is a much bigger deal that the Skripal poisoning. Russia clearly isn't afraid of "provoking" Western countries.
  - azangru 8y ago
    Why is it a bigger deal? It could have been a bigger deal if Ukraine were a member of NATO, and the alliance had an obligation to respond. But as the things stand, why is it a big deal — for the US, the UK, Germany, France, etc.? (Skripals poisoning, in contrast, would imply a special operation on the soil of a sovereign Western country, using the tabooed chemical weapons. A concrete, old-school, physical action, as opposed to the more abstract propaganda wars or some shady online activities.)
    - foldr 8y ago
      >Skripals poisoning, in contrast, would imply a special operation on the soil of a sovereign Western country, using the tabooed chemical weapons. That's nothing Russia hadn't already done years before.
      - azangru 8y ago
        And proudly signaled to the rest of the world that it was them that did it? What cases are you thinking about?
        foldr 8y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvine...
        azangru 8y ago
        Yes, the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko. Even the Wikipedia article says that the correct diagnosis — the poisoning by polonium-210 — was made to a large extent due to a happy coincidence: there happened to be a scientist in the facility where Litvinenko was treated who happened to have worked with polonium. Were it not for that coincidence, it is very possible the correct diagnosis would not have been reached, and the very investigation that followed would not gone very far. So I am not sure how Litvinenko poisoning is an illustration of an assassination attempt advertised as such to the rest of the world. On the contrary, it looks like a murder attempt that was intended to have never been solved.