On his website, John Laurits (a self-identified communist based in Oregon) claimed that there is “no evidence” that Russia was involved in the poisoning of former Russian spy and double agent, Sergei Skripal.
The blog post was shared on Facebook pages including “Thinking Progressives” and “Real Progressives” before users flagged it as potentially containing inaccurate information.
On March 4, Skripal and his 33-year-old daughter, Yulia, were found slumped over on a park bench in Salisbury after being poisoned by a nerve agent. At least 21 people have received medical treatment due to the attack.
In 2006, Skripal was convicted of working with British secret services since the ‘90s and was sentenced to 13 years in prison. In 2010 he was pardoned as part of a spy swap in which Russia gave up Skripal and three others for 10 Russian spies abroad.
In her address to the Commons, Prime Minister Theresa May stated that “either this was a direct action by the Russian state against our country, or the Russian government lost control of its potentially catastrophically damaging nerve agent and allowed it to get into the hands of others.”
The nerve agent referred to belongs to a series known colloquially as “Novichok.” Novichok was developed in Russia during the 1970s and ‘80s to attack NATO troops.
The Russians denied that they were the perpetrators of this attack, just as they have denied the poisoning of ex-FSB officer and defector Alexander Litvinenko in London with polonium-210.
Laurits argues that because the nerve agent was created in the USSR, and since the USSR no longer exists, the nerve agent isn’t directly linked back to Russia.
The author then suggests that even if the nerve agent was created by the USSR, it does not prove Russia was behind the attack, noting that “since the Brits developed heroin, they must also be guilty of Kurt Cobain’s death.”
Within the blog, Laurits flip-flops by suggesting that there is “no evidence” at the onset and later stating Theresa May has “a near-total lack of evidence to support” her claim.
Contrary to Laurits’ article, the fact that the target was an ex-Russian spy and that the nerve agent was developed by the Russians serve as two major pieces of evidence. Suggesting that there is “literally no evidence” is incorrect.
Toward the end of his blog post, Laurits reiterates his claim to argue that there is not “enough evidence to make” the claim.
This, however, is different than suggesting there is no evidence that points to Russia as the culprit. More evidence may be required to prove that Russia was behind the attack, but stating that there is no evidence pointing to the Russian government is incorrect.
Laurits’ website professes to be “neither non-profit nor for-profit and reject[s] all forms of capitalist exploitation because we’re #!@%ing communists and anarchists.”
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