@Marie There are those who opportunistically jump on the supposed poisoning vs. the agenda of those who did the poisoning. If there was a poisoning in fact. I remember reading about a theory that the Skipals were the victims of a type of clam based neurotoxin food poison--which they supposedly ate before they became unconscious.

#5 between perpetrating a false flag and falsely exploiting an event.

While I would never discount the callousness of any government or faction within a government to achieve an objective via a false flag, controlling all the elements of the event and the propaganda required to point in the wrong direction and totally hide the real perpetrators is quite difficult.

It's far easier to exploit an event for which the exploiters had zero participation in. A classic example is "Remember the Maine" An accident turned into an attack; although it appears that yellow journalists were in the forefront of claiming an attack.

To me, the Putin-Russia poison claims have been rolled out in a much too ragged form to suggest false flags or Russian culpability. From Litivenko through Navalny, the alleged targets are too minor to meaningless for any state assassination, the 'poison' is always something that can be made to seem to be unique to Russia, the point of contact for the victim to be poisoned is always in a public space*, and the 'poison' is always so highly toxic that 1) there should be more than one victim and 2) the 'poison' is too dangerous to consider using for an assassination. *The Skripal doorknob claim is completely ludicrous, but not to the MET/MI-5/6, BBC, the Guardian, etc. IOW, the science is crap, but the propaganda is 'good enough' even though it took them weeks to concoct it.

The first one, Litivenko, didn't hit any direct pay dirt except for westerners already predisposed to hate Russia. The second one did a bit better, but again only with westerners; more government sanctions on Russia and slightly reduced interest in FIFA (but football fanatics were too tough of a nut). Didn't impact the Russian election that came two weeks after the alleged poisoning in the least. The curiosity in the Navalny affair is Germany's participation.

The alleged Navalny poisoning as pressure for the covert coup in Belarus is far too loose a connection to be an organized PR operation. (USG, UK, EU, NATO, etc. are resolute in their overthrow efforts in eastern Europe and the planning and funding goes on for decades.) It more armchair speculation that western governments see no need to comment on.

Not surprising that NordStream 2 opponents would seize on this at this time. The US/Pompeo has been working hard on its opposition and made no secret of this. This gives a boost to opponents in Germany. As a supporter of the pipeline, Merkel's participation in the ruse is the oddity. What was she paid for it? And does she expect to wiggle out of the box at a later date with the pipeline a done deal?

What I suspect is that for Merkel this is about preserving the CDU and her associates. Get the Wireccard scandal off the front pages. This is a big deal in Germany because Wirecard was its major player in the fintech sector, and this one goes right up the line to Merkel who pitched Wirecard in China last fall. Other than the #2 at Wirecard, the others have been arrested. However, #2, Jan Marsalek, is being characterized as fraudster in chief, and MI-6 through Bellingcrap has claimed that Marsalek skedaddled to Belarus on his way to Russia. There's no evidence that Russia had anything to do with Wirecard; so, harboring this fugitive would not be in its interests. Another huge wrinkle in this mess is the 2019 Softbank billion dollar investment in Wirecard. There's some suspicion that Softbank is a CIA (or western intell) cutout money laundering operation. (Did this have anything to do with Shinzo Abe's 28 Aug resignation?)

Just in time: How a Soviet Triple Agent Recruited New Spies in the West The story now is that Marsalek is a GU agent ("GRU" according to western press that can't wrap it's mind around a name change from years ago.) This is being pushed by Financial Times that did credible reporting on Wirecard, but perhaps it wasn't so much reporting as being a mouthpiece for some corporate or government entity that wanted to take down this rogue fintech player and continues to do so.

@Marie

I want to think that there is a financial motive because there always is one. You outlined the possibilities.

But.... the goings-on are just too clumsy and meandering. Like that time Pompeo assassinated Qasem Soleimani because of reasons. No MBA's were involved in writing this script either, that's for sure. The global press has been in the loop from the beginninf. It's like a PR operation. The press reports the 'dumb' political assertions with a breathtaking lack of curiosity. Ejecting inconvenient facts as quickly as they pop up.

Bellingcrap...

Hahaha... funny. As we know, Bellingcat is the Barnum and Bailey of geopolitical psy-ops. That's the giveaway right there.

I had two associated thoughts:

1) The Navalny poisoning had a strong 'Mr. Magoo' quality to it, which is so characteristic of State Department hits. The narrative was scripted with missing details and mis-steps, and the reader was given sinister clues and invited to speculate.

2) The use of Novichok — obviously at a 'safe for pets' dilution — has to be a message of some kind. Are they branding Putin with a 'soviet' so-called 'nerve agent' that is weak and never works the way it's supposed to — just to embarrass him?

There are myriad logic problems: For example, I seem to recall that Russia didn't produce Novichok. It had been produced long ago in a lab in one of the Stans (was it Belarus?) And the excess produced was held there. When the Soviet Union broke up in 1990, Belarus ended up with the Novichok stash, just like Ukraine ended up with all the BUK ground-to-air missile launchers. (I'm working from memory, here.) Then in 1997 or so, Russia (with US help) destroyed most of its chemical weapons and signed a Treaty with the US stipulating that both countries would curb their own development and stockpiling of chemical weapons.

But then I also remembered the same pattern of cooperation in Syria in 2013, when the Neocons were in a state of delusional hysteria over Assad's stores of chemical weapons — and Netanyohu was drawing Road Runner cartoons at the UN, insisting on a first strike against Syria. So, Russia stepped in to diffuse the situation and remove Syria's chemical weapons. They were loaded onto a Russian ship, and later transferred to a US Navy ship, at sea. Although the US reported they had been destroyed, the false flag chemical weapons attacks continued, staged by the White Helmet resistance. And the US bombed Syria in retaliation at a time when Syria had no such weapons.

Syria's lack of chemical was the number one reason that we knew they were false flag attacks.

The Native Americans would be the first to point out that treaties and agreements with the US cannot be trusted, and often end in deceit. Fast forward to 2020 and we see that beyond the thousand or so bio-labs inside the US involved in Pentagon-funded weapons research — the Pentagon has established scores of low-profile bio-weapons labs around the globe. Currently, the US operates a string of bio-weapons labs that are strategically located along Russia's border with Europe, where they are trying to develop a virus that kills ethnic Russians, exclusively. US bio-labs are on China's border, too. As part of their jobs, American diplomatic corp now act as 'mules'. transporting specimens around the world in their diplomatic pouches.

Poor Mr. Navalny. He's now the Juan Guaidó of Russia.

[Edit = Add links]

#5 between perpetrating a false flag and falsely exploiting an event.

While I would never discount the callousness of any government or faction within a government to achieve an objective via a false flag, controlling all the elements of the event and the propaganda required to point in the wrong direction and totally hide the real perpetrators is quite difficult.

It's far easier to exploit an event for which the exploiters had zero participation in. A classic example is "Remember the Maine" An accident turned into an attack; although it appears that yellow journalists were in the forefront of claiming an attack.

To me, the Putin-Russia poison claims have been rolled out in a much too ragged form to suggest false flags or Russian culpability. From Litivenko through Navalny, the alleged targets are too minor to meaningless for any state assassination, the 'poison' is always something that can be made to seem to be unique to Russia, the point of contact for the victim to be poisoned is always in a public space*, and the 'poison' is always so highly toxic that 1) there should be more than one victim and 2) the 'poison' is too dangerous to consider using for an assassination. *The Skripal doorknob claim is completely ludicrous, but not to the MET/MI-5/6, BBC, the Guardian, etc. IOW, the science is crap, but the propaganda is 'good enough' even though it took them weeks to concoct it.

The first one, Litivenko, didn't hit any direct pay dirt except for westerners already predisposed to hate Russia. The second one did a bit better, but again only with westerners; more government sanctions on Russia and slightly reduced interest in FIFA (but football fanatics were too tough of a nut). Didn't impact the Russian election that came two weeks after the alleged poisoning in the least. The curiosity in the Navalny affair is Germany's participation.

The alleged Navalny poisoning as pressure for the covert coup in Belarus is far too loose a connection to be an organized PR operation. (USG, UK, EU, NATO, etc. are resolute in their overthrow efforts in eastern Europe and the planning and funding goes on for decades.) It more armchair speculation that western governments see no need to comment on.

Not surprising that NordStream 2 opponents would seize on this at this time. The US/Pompeo has been working hard on its opposition and made no secret of this. This gives a boost to opponents in Germany. As a supporter of the pipeline, Merkel's participation in the ruse is the oddity. What was she paid for it? And does she expect to wiggle out of the box at a later date with the pipeline a done deal?

What I suspect is that for Merkel this is about preserving the CDU and her associates. Get the Wireccard scandal off the front pages. This is a big deal in Germany because Wirecard was its major player in the fintech sector, and this one goes right up the line to Merkel who pitched Wirecard in China last fall. Other than the #2 at Wirecard, the others have been arrested. However, #2, Jan Marsalek, is being characterized as fraudster in chief, and MI-6 through Bellingcrap has claimed that Marsalek skedaddled to Belarus on his way to Russia. There's no evidence that Russia had anything to do with Wirecard; so, harboring this fugitive would not be in its interests. Another huge wrinkle in this mess is the 2019 Softbank billion dollar investment in Wirecard. There's some suspicion that Softbank is a CIA (or western intell) cutout money laundering operation. (Did this have anything to do with Shinzo Abe's 28 Aug resignation?)

Just in time: How a Soviet Triple Agent Recruited New Spies in the West The story now is that Marsalek is a GU agent ("GRU" according to western press that can't wrap it's mind around a name change from years ago.) This is being pushed by Financial Times that did credible reporting on Wirecard, but perhaps it wasn't so much reporting as being a mouthpiece for some corporate or government entity that wanted to take down this rogue fintech player and continues to do so.