Talked to someone in North America this week: “Heard your friend Putin just poisoned another opposition politician.” Porton Down and the Skripals were part of a long game: events like this are is how you condition a population to respond like Pavlov’s dogs.

Paint the Russians as poisoners and you only have to sacrifice a pawn for a new round of sanctions. The timing here makes it more than obvious that a Navalny poisoning would be to help US policy. This month has been taken up with the attempt at overturning the Belarussian state (it’s early in that game yet, there’s some more moves to be made but they depend on putting the Russians on their back heel) and sabotaging Nord Stream II.

Poisoning your own man at risk of death and/or lifetime disability is a substantial sacrifice to make, but to a cynical imperialist mind well worth it to either win Belorussia, shut down Nord Stream II or even both.

Continue reading How Alexey Navalny was poisoned and by whom at uncoy.