David Vance SubstackRead More
Earlier this month, the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry concluded that Russian President Putin personally authorised two GRU officers to murder ex-spy Sergei Skripal with Novichok back in March 2018. The report concluded he had “moral responsibility”
I am sure you remember all the sensational headlines at the time. The same poison allegedly killed innocent bystander Dawn Sturgess months later.
However I think that the official narrative is like Swiss cheese insofar as it is full of holes!
Let’s look at just some of these.
For starters, the “science” is baffling. Novichok is supposed to be eight times deadlier than VX and kill within minutes from skin contact. The Skripals were supposedly exposed to it when they touched their front-door handle. Yet the managed to drive into town, had lunch and drinks four hours later—before collapsing on a bench. Huh?
Both survived with no obvious long-term damage. Yulia Skripal was well enough to make a calm phone call to Moscow. The discarded perfume bottle that killed Dawn Sturgess months later still contained “high-purity” Novichok, we were told—odd for a substance that had been sitting in a park through all kinds of weather.
The evidence itself is strangely sourced. Key proof came not from MI6 but from the amateur investigators at Bellingcat, who used open-source flight and passport data. CCTV coverage is patchy; no footage clearly shows the two Russians near the Skripals’ house at the crucial time. The Government has never released forensic chain-of-custody documents or the full Porton Down lab report. Porton Down itself only said the agent was “of a type developed by Russia,” not that it came from Russia. There is a crucial difference that the media ignored. Much of the inquiry’s conclusion rests on secret intelligence the public cannot see. Can you REALLY trust this?
Finally, the operation—if it was Russian—makes little sense. Why send two identifiable GRU officers on traceable flights, smear poison on a door handle in broad daylight, then dump the bottle where civilians could find it, all weeks before Putin’s re-election and the pivotal World Cup in Russia? Isn’t that just courting a PR disaster? Why would such an operation be personally green lighted by Putin?
Sergei Skripal had been living openly in Britain for eight years after a spy swap; if Moscow wanted him dead, surely quieter methods were available? Salisbury is also just eight miles from Porton Down, Britain’s own chemical-weapons laboratory. Coincidence or convenient?
The Skripals have never spoken publicly since the incident, and key evidence remains classified. Until an independent, transparent investigation releases the raw data, I think reasonable people are entitled to doubt the official narrative. Yes, what happened to Dawn Sturgess was tragic—but pinning it on Putin with so many unanswered questions feels more like gaslighting.
