Veteran
journalist and author Joseph C. Goulden offers a review in the Washington Times
of Mark Urban’s The Skripal Files.
Speaking
to reporters in December 2010, Russian President Vladimir
Putin denied that his spy agencies had assassination squads
that targeted defectors. But he voiced an ominous warning. “Whatever thirty
pieces of silver those people may have gotten, they will stick in their
throat.”
Despite his shortcomings as a
decent human, give Mr.
Putin credit: He carries out his threats. Any person
unfortunate enough to cross him is a step removed from the grave.
The civilized world was shocked
in March when a defected Russian intelligence officer, Sergei
Skripal, and his daughter, Yulia, were stricken with a
mysterious poison in the quiet British town of Salisbury.
They were in critical condition for weeks but survived. Scientific tests
identified the poison involved as Novichok, developed by Russia
for germ warfare. It had been smeared on the door knob of the Skripal home.
The
attack matched earlier Russian murder operations, notably the poisoning death
of defector Alexander Litvinenko in 2006.
Mr.
Skripal, a onetime Red Army airborne colonel, had shifted to
the GRU, the military’s intelligence arm. Disillusioned with the Communist
regime, he tried to resign, but was refused. (As Mr.
Putin himself once said, “There is no such thing as an ex-KGB
man.”
You can
read the rest of the review via the below link:
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