Any idea if the radiation found at all those sites in the UK are just from this poisoned fellow walking around, or other attempts at poisoning? It seems like a really sadistic plot, if indeed it is KGB revenge, right out of the Cold War. I'm not sure who to blame it on, though Putin certainly isn't as nice a fellow as he tries (poorly) to outwardly appear. Maybe he'll have to join Kimmy in the sanctions pen. No more Polonium for you!

They also think that some 30,000 other people may have been affected by the radiation due to traveling on what was two planes found to be contaminated by the radiation, but apprently now its four planes.

Bump off someone that is in such a rare form (although amazed they didn't work this out weeks before hand, seriously - what was wrong with them over there to take so ffing long to get it right?) of poisoning that it points directly to Russia.

It just seems a little too obvious, he's obviously been poisoned, it's obviously linked back to Russia... if they'd done it, I would have expected it to be a lot more low key to keep awkward finger pointing away from Russia.

Makes me wonder whether there is ulterior motive instead? Was he really a target? Or was his death merely a catalyst?

form what i understand, effs, there's virtually no risk of bystanders or fellow passengers being affected by being next to someone poisoned by polonium or even near to the polonium itelf, as the range of it's radioactive emissions is very limited. It's only dangerous when it gets inside the body through ingestion, inhalation, or the pores of the skin; it's incredibly toxic, as we;ve seen.

I also questioned the competence of the medical team trying to treat him but then they were pointed down the wrong path. That it was the ingestion of some type of toxin, possibly related to the eating of raw fish in a Japanese restaurant (I feel sorry for the proprietor of that place, by the way. His shop has been splashed on tv for days on end with the 'poisoning' leader being shouted out simultaneously).

This is very much like a John le Carre novel imo.

I think the Putin government is complicit and they want it to be known.

I think also that because of the type of toxin used to kill him, the people who would be handling it until the package was delivered necessarily had to observe precautions that lend themselves to not leaving any type of physical evidence save the radiation itself.

So it is, in a way, the ideal toxin. Everyone "knows" who had to have done it, message thus being delivered extremely eloquently and painfully, but no one has the physical evidence needed to prove it.

Polonium 210 most easily is obtained from sophisticated nuclear power / fuel generating facilities. But Marie Curie discovered polonium 210 by experimenting with bismuth and barium. Not with nuclear materials, per se. So it is not impossible for the polonium to have come from other means ... just less likely in today's standards.

Putin has been establishing a fascist state ever since he took power. He has, slowly but very effectively, eliminated potential power rivals by taking down the oligarchs who themselves were very corrupt and who were robbing the people of the riches of the ex-communist state to line their own pockets. Now, if the are going to be thieves, they have to be Putin's thieves or face jail and dispossession of their worldly goods.

An investigative Russian journalist who'd been dogging Putin, Anna Politkovskaya, was murdered last month after recieving death threats following her publication of a book that was highly critical of Puty. Then there was the near-fatal dioxin poising of that Ukrainian politician, Viktor Yushenko? <sp> because he wasn't Moscow's man. Looks like the KGB/Schmert Spionam or whatever they call themselves now are back in the political assassination business!

But you know it could be the doing one of Putin's creatures, the Chechen premier, Kadyrov, who's apparently a really nasty piece of work and has been compared to Stalin. The Chechen Secret Police seem to have carte blanche from the Russian authorities to hunt people down all over Russia, not just in the pro-Russian run Chechen Republic. All these dead people have been even more critical of him than they have even of Putin

(but have you noticed how Putin grins like a shark when he's on telly? You can just picture him attaching the electrodes to a prisoner..)

I could be Kadyrov except that I don't think Putin would let Kadyrov or his elements get within 200kms of a nuclear facility, much less let him get his hands on polonium without his imprimatur.

inhalation like in the closed air system of an aircraft in flight?

Taw got it right freighter fighter, there's virtually no danger unless you licked the guy's seat. hmm, can you tell who's an educated BBC-news consumer and who has been weaned on american cable "news" sensationalism? (omfg, radioactive! plane! snakes! aiyeeeee!)

i hate our news outlets - particularly tv 'journalism' (stand in front of bodies, or smoking wreckage, etc and that qualifies as journalism... or sometimes don't even stand there, stand a block away and speculate on whats actually happening... fawgh i hate them) - rather than take a serious look at what's going on in russia, they go on for hours about the half life of polonium - bah!

Well said, Cold_Void.

It'll be interesting to see what comes out of all of this, especially on the international level. Will this have any effect on Russia's position/ influence in the UN? Will Putin (if he did it) keep poisoning people willy-nilly until the enemy list is down to nothing?

if he did, who's going to stop him? He treated Dubya with utter contempt at the G8, ignored Blair, and cuts off oil and gas to Western Europe if he feels like it. Why do you think the Germans never so much as say "boo!" to whatever the Russians do these days? because without Russian coal, oil, and gas, they'd freeze this winter. The big Western companies are so desperate for Russian business and resources that Putin has a gun (metaphorically speaking) at everyone's head. One of the messages of these recent murders is that Russia is back on the world stage, flexing it's muscles, and they don't give a stuff what anyone thinks.

Since the end of the Cold war we've all got so used to the idea of Russia being this post-Communist poverty stricken dunghole, we haven't noticed how Putin's economic and political "reforms" have been concentrating power and wealth. During the 90s Russia was collapsing and prostrate, but it's not really like that anymore.

Quite an optimistic outlook you've got there, Taw. Perhaps you should send your fledgingly army of Tawalkanistan after them...

So there could be a whole new cold war... when they stop shipping us gas.

*badum tish*

I suppose from that perspective, yes - they could easily make it obvious whom did it, as no-one's really going to do anything. Forgot about strangle holds on oil/gas supplies, which mean no-one is really going to kick up much fuss.

I just worked on the principle that if you bump off an ex-spy, all those whom you may wish to know about it will find out anyway. Just that the public don't hear about it, and they are the ones which would make things occur. I don't think that if the papers hadn't covered this guys death quite so intensely, that the investigation would have anything like its current manpower or resource allotment. No ministers spoke until the newspapers were running riot about the poisoning, and finally one of them spoke out (an Irish one wasn't it?). Only after his death did they bother tracing his steps to find out about planes, hotel rooms etc. Before then, they've been sat on their ass for a month doing sod all! As soon as they suspected radioactive poisoning (which was 3 weeks ago?) they should have been checking the locations he was at for any traces - they would have EASILY found out what was wrong with him then :/

That's why I wondered at the blatantly obvious poisoning - the people who would want to know would find out whether it was so obviously open, or whether it was slightly more quietly done. It's also why I wondered about the incompetance of the medical service - then again, maybe i've watched too many episodes of House

Now there is a public fuss and political pressure on the USS, erm, Russia - which they could have easily avoided, which was why I am suprised at the method employed.

It was me :p I'd have used a Kame-Hame-Ha, but I thought this way was more subtle

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Edited by - Saiyan on 12/2/2006 6:54:04 PM