The Russian connection

[Tranquillus in Exile]

Russian defector Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia are in intensive care after being exposed to an unknown substance while sitting on a bench in Salisbury. Police and intelligence agencies are seeking to understand why Colonel Skripal was targeted on Sunday, almost eight years after coming to England in a spy exchange in 2010.

One possible motive is a link between Colonel Skripal and Christopher Steele, the former MI6 agent who compiled a dossier detailing alleged corruption involving President Donald Trump and the Kremlin. Mr Steele ran the MI6 desk in Moscow in the 1990s at a time when Colonel Skripal was being courted, and was in charge of the Russia desk in London from 2006 to 2009.

Professor Anthony Glees, director of the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies at the University of Buckingham, said: “What we know is that Steele was our man in Russia, that he was extremely good. We know that what MI6 does is gain intelligence from human agents. You put all these things together, it is clear that Sergei Skripal would have been known to Christopher Steele, it cannot be otherwise.

“If it is the case that Christopher Steele produced a dossier on Trump that is authentic and accurate, as we believe it to be – its accuracy has not been seriously undermined - then anybody who feels that Trump was humiliated by an MI6 officer may feel that getting at one of his agents is justified. That could be the Russian security services.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...enge-poisoned/
[extracts]

[kudzu]

Makes sense to me......