DISINFO: UK has been using chemical weapons for long time
DISINFORMATION CASE DETAILS
  • Outlet: Solovyov LIVE - YouTube [from 00:01:56 to 00:05:22] (archived)*
  • Date of publication: August 21, 2021
  • Article language(s): Russian
  • Reported in: Issue 256
  • Countries / regions discussed: Russia, UK, Germany
Tags:
novichok Chemical weapons/attack White Helmets Alexander Litvinenko Amesbury poisoning

DISINFO: UK has been using chemical weapons for long time

SUMMARY

UK played a role in coordinating the international response in the Navalny case where Germany also acted as Navalny was in Germany. The first round was UK's study of material in the Litvinenko case. The next act was the Skripals case where PM Theresa May stirred up drama. The next round was use of poison and chemical weapons staged by the "White Helmets" in Syria. UK is linked to this as the creator and leader of the "White Helmets" NGO is a retired UK military officer. But something went wrong and he suddenly ended his life by suicide...

RESPONSE

One of the various and contradictory false narratives of the pro-Kremlin media on the poisoning of Alexey Navalny.

The poisoning of the Kremlin’s prominent critic Alexey Navalny by the nerve agent Novichok was confirmed by OPCW. Before the poisoning, Navalny was followed by FSB officers, including from a clandestine unit specialised in working with poisonous substances, during his trips across Russia, traveling alongside him on more than 30 overlapping flights to the same destinations.

OPCW has confirmed the use of chemical weapons in Syria, which pro-Kremlin media systematically mock, advancing conspiracy theories. Thus, RT France received a reprimand from a local media regulator for doing false voiceovers of the interviews of Syrians in an attempt to represent chemical attacks as “staged”.

For the Skripal’s poisoning in 2018, two Russian men turned out to be Russian GRU officers and are currently wanted by UK counterterrorism police.

In the case of former FSB officer, turned critic of Kremlin, Alexander Litvinenko, who was murdered in the UK in 2006 due to the poisoning by radioactive polonium, two Russian former colleagues of Litvinenko Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitri Kovtun are wanted by the UK. Polonium er very difficult to obtain and since it is radioactive, it left traces everywhere: not only in Litvinenko's body but also in the place of meeting of the three, in the hotel rooms of Lugovoy and Kovtun, on the plane of British Airways, which they took, and even in Germany, where they also traveled, the trace of polonium was confirmed by German police. In 2016, the Litvinenko public inquiry in the UK stipulated that his murder was commissioned by the Russian State.

Pro-Kremlin media systematically mocks Litvinenko’s murder and the chemical weapons investigations, advancing various geopolitical theories to “always blame the West”.

See more disinformation cases on the chemical weapons/attacks, the Skripals, White Helmets and Litvinenko’s murder.

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Disclaimer

Cases in the EUvsDisinfo database focus on messages in the international information space that are identified as providing a partial, distorted, or false depiction of reality and spread key pro-Kremlin messages. This does not necessarily imply, however, that a given outlet is linked to the Kremlin or editorially pro-Kremlin, or that it has intentionally sought to disinform. EUvsDisinfo publications do not represent an official EU position, as the information and opinions expressed are based on media reporting and analysis of the East Stratcom Task Force.

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