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Anna Kushchenko was a beautiful model and socialite who wormed her way into Manhattan’s uppity circles under the made-up name “Anna Chapman.†She worked for the Kremlin — she was a Russian spy. On June 27, 2010, the FBI swooped in and arrested three men named Mikhail, one named Vladimir, one named Andrei, and five women: Lydia Guryev, Natalia Pereverzeva, Elena Vavilova, Vicky Pelaez and the sultry exhibitionist Anna “Chapman†Kuschenko. Four years earlier, Sergei Viktorovich Skripal, a Russian intelligence officer who Putin had caught moonlighting in his second job of supplying the UK with Russian military secrets, was tried and sentenced to 13 years in prison for high treason. He had been in prison four years when the FBI carried out Operation Ghost Stories, arresting Anna Kushchenko and the other nine members of the Russian sleeper cell in New York. Twelve days after being arrested, the ten sleeper agents were put on a plane leaving the US, while Sergei Skripal and three other imprisoned American and UK spies, were flown out of Russia. The two planes met on the tarmac in Vienna, taxied next to each other, and stopped. Covered stairways were brought to each plane for the biggest spy-swap since the Cold War began.
Anna rose to stardom showing her butt and tweeting a marriage proposal to Edward Snowden in 2013, a move she thought would help him avoid extradition from Putin’s hospitality suite to the US.
Sergei Skripal relocated to Salisbury, England where he lived alone with his cat and two guinea pigs. On March 3, 2018, Sergei’s 33-year-old daughter, Yulia, flew into Heathrow from Russia. Sergei left his home, closing the front door of his home behind him so his animals wouldn’t get out, and proceeded down London Road in his red 2009 BMW. After picking up Yulia at Heathrow, the 66-year-old Sergei drove to the upper parking deck at the Maltings where they parked and headed to Bishop’s Mill Pub in the center of Salisbury. After a drink, they walked to Zinni Italian Restaurant on Castle Street for a leisurely dinner. The passerby who found them unconscious on the park bench said Yulia was foaming at the mouth with her eyes were rolled back in her head, completely white and wide open, appearing dead.
Novichok is a Russian-made deadly class of chemical nerve agents. It’s what Putin used on Alexei Navalny. The chemical had been wiped onto Sergei’s front door handle and was transferred to his hand when he pulled the door closed. His two guinea pigs were found dead inside and his cat, in severe stressed breathing, had to be euthanized. Sergei and Yulia were hospitalized in critical condition, but lived. Russian intelligence officers Colonel Anatoliy Vladimirovich Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin brought the nerve agent into Salisbury in a pretty perfume bottle and discarded the bottle in a recycle bin after applying a tiny amount to the door handle. Denis Vyacheslavovich Sergeev was the GRU agent in UK at the time and he facilitated the plot with Chepiga and Mishkin. He was the link in the chain of command that led directly back to Putin.
Three months after the incident, Charlie Rowley saw the pretty bottle in a charity bin and decided to buy it for his girlfriend, Dawn Sturgess. Dawn endured a horribly painful death. There was enough nerve agent in the perfume bottle to kill THOUSANDS of people. It was a banned chemical agent used to murder a British citizen in a NATO country and there wasn’t s*** done about it.
Oh sure, many countries expressed their disapproval by deporting Russia’s spies from various embassies. Theresa May was the British Prime Minister at the time; Boris Johnson was the foreign secretary. A few days later in April 2018, Boris flew to Brussels to meet with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the foreign ministers from all NATO countries to decide on their joint approach to Russia at the upcoming July summit in Helsinki — the one where Trump dismissed note-takers and talked directly to Putin with no witnesses or recordings. As other foreign ministers headed home after the April advance-meeting, Boris — with no luggage or security — took a detour to the Perugia San Francesco d'Assisi airport in Italy where he was driven to a night of hard partying at the Tuscany castle of Russian media mogul Evgeny Lebedev, a London resident. The forty-year-old Evgeny didn’t make his billions; he was born into money — his father is Russian oligarch Colonel Alexander Lebedev, age 60, an “ex†KBG officer…. to the highly unlikely extent any KGB officer can ever be “ex.â€
The Russian oligarch, half owner of the Tuscany castle with his son, also flew in for a fun night with Boris in the castle. The following day, Boris was seen alone in a corner of the airport lounge, disheveled, wrinkled jacket, creased pants, as if he’d had a rough night and slept in his clothes. He walked through the airport in a “curved†posture, carrying a barf bag, stopping to pose for selfies with people who had recognized him. Boris was also the highest-ranking British official at a London Christmas party held four months earlier on December 15, 2017 at Evgeny Lebedev’s 20 Park Square East townhouse. Boris stayed late into the night with Lebedev, basking in the adulation of earlier-departing guests Elton John, Mick Jagger, Patrick Stewart and British heartthrobs Benedict Cumberbatch and Idris Elba. Rupert Murdoch was also in attendance.
The UK never retaliated against Russia for the murder of British citizen Dawn Sturgess or the attempted murder of Sergei and Yulia Skripal who, after months of clandestine living under the protection of MI6, now reside in New Zealand under new identities. Putin’s blatant and open use of a chemical agent to carry out a terror attack inside a NATO country went unanswered. When asked about Russia meddling in British elections, Boris immediately and emphatically said it had never happened, “not a sausage of evidence.†I do not pretend to know what that means. But a 50-page report published in July 2020 by the British Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament said Russia’s interference in British elections was “commonplace.†The committee was prohibited from looking specifically at the Brexit vote which Putin sorely wanted passed to keep the UK from being bound to come to the aide of European Union countries.
Boris: Successfully led the UK out of the European Union — something Putin needed in his quest to begin taking over EU countries. Trump: Campaigned in 2016, while he was being actively supported by Putin, on the idea of pulling the United States out of NATO — something Putin needed in his quest to begin taking over NATO countries. Once in office, Trump did all he could to malign and weaken NATO, and laid the groundwork for pulling us out, by withdrawing the US from other agreements. Boris: Not a sausage of evidence Putin meddled in our elections, even though a bipartisan parliament committee found differently. Trump: Took the word of Putin over every intelligence agency in America telling Trump Russia had meddled in our 2016 elections. The younger Lebedev is now “The Right Honorable Lebedev†and “The Lord Lebedev†and “Baron of Hampton and Siberia†and every other ridiculous palm-greasing honorarium Boris could slather on him.
The Queen made Lebedev “Baron†at Boris’ request; the House of Lords granted him the “peerage†of “The Lord†and a seat in their upper chamber, at Boris’ request. When Boris nominated the Moscow-born Lebedev in July 2020 for peerage in the House of Lords, MI6 and other British Intelligence agencies squawked — just as our own intelligence agencies objected to full security clearance for Russia-beholden Jared and others — but Boris, like Trump, personally intervened and ordered him cleared. Of course, Boris denies it. The Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev, father of “The Right Honorable Lord Lebedev, Baron of Hampton and Siberia,†has not been placed on the UK sanctions list.
Don’t look for great things out of Boris.
---Cree Hardegree, Pontevedra, GA
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