Salisbury, Novichok and the GRU

The police investigations into the Salisbury poisonings has been remarkably successful and thorough, identifying, beyond reasonable doubt, the circumstances method and perpetrators of the original attack on the Skripals and the subsequent death and injury caused by the discarded perfume bottle used to deliver the poison to the Skripal door handle.

At a fairly early stage this blog expressed the view that the GRU were likely to be involved because while one of their agents Skripal had also been working for MI6. The GRU really does not forgive traitors. The government has expressed understandable outrage at these events and sought and received support from its allies around the world.  Where this blog has a question it is this. The UK government has asserted that the operation was ‘almost certainly‘ approved by the Russian government, i.e Putin.

This blog thinks the opposite. Vladimir Putin is one of the most savvy operators and experienced leaders on the international stage. He is bold but cautious. When he moves it is to gain. He dealt with Chechnya and Georgia, has become perhaps the major player in the Middle East helping Assad to retain power against all the odds and defeat, militarily at least, the various rebel groupings, and in response to the toppling of the pro-Russian government in Ukraine has gained Crimea.

It suits the UK government to blame Putin personally as it wears appalling relations with Russia as a badge of honour. But for the government to be right requires Putin, who is the big loser of the Salisbury affair, to have blundered. That seems too much like wishful thinking. There remains more to this than we yet know.