The Russian military has announced that they believe an alleged chemical attack in Syria was staged and directed by Britain. We were going to put a pun in the headline but honestly, this is ridiculous enough on its own.

Activists in the country had said a chemical attack by the Syrian government killed more than 40 people in the town of Douma and this drew international outrage. However, Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov has now said:

“We have evidence that proves Britain was directly involved in organising this provocation.”

Russia has often accused opposition fighters of staging or spreading rumours of chemical attacks, but the involvement of Britain is a new claim.

Chemical weapons have previously been used by Bashar al-Assad’s force. Human Rights Watch has documented 85 chemical weapons attacks in Syria since 2013. For example, investigations by the United Nations and the OPCW have concluded that the Syrian government has previously used chemical weapons in the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack. The Syrian government and Russia claimed the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack came from a rebel operated chemical weapon workshop, however their claim was disproved by OPCW investigations.

Yesterday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry hit out at reports that the UK has ordered a British submarine to move within striking distance of Syria. As we reported here, a British nuclear submarine has been ordered to move “within missile range of Syria”, as strikes against the Assad regime are put on the table.

Prime Minister Theresa May said that London will join any punitive strike against the Syrian regime. May added that she will not be seeking a vote in parliament to authorise British participation in any forthcoming strike agianst Syria. British nuclear submarines of the Trafalgar and Astute class are armed with 1,000 mile range Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Russia’s ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Zasypkin had earlier said any missiles fired at Syria would be shot down and the launch sites targeted, a step which could trigger a major escalation in the Syrian war.

“If there is a strike by the Americans then the missiles will be downed and even the sources from which the missiles were fired” he told Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV.”

Now, Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, has suggested that a missile attack would be a grave error that the Prime Minister would have to apologise for later. She said the “young men” on board the submarines have no idea “what fate they are preparing for” and “what fate Theresa May prepares for them.”

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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42 COMMENTS

  2. Wow….Totalitarian states generate even more fairytales than democracies, which when you look at some of the stuff that comes out of the mouths of our politicians is really quite an achievement.

  3. Just who do the Russians/Putin think they’re kidding? To be quite frank making such utterly ludicrous false allegations only goes to show how insulated & dumb those in the Kremlin are….

  6. Afternoon
    All part of the game, getting noise out there spreading disinformation and countering a narrative that is going on today in NATO, OPCW etc. We are slowly building a case, verified independently each step of the way and then, when required shared with allies.
    This is going to be a slow methodical process – bureaucratic in its thoroughness and no-one does bureaucracy better than us – nobody ?

  7. If the politicians are going to go full scale Cold War, I wish they’d at least study “Cold War 101”. First the accusations, then the denials, then the repeat accusations, then the heated denials, then the few expulsions, then retaliation, then more expulsions and retaliations, and then that number of weeks later everyone’s forgotten what it was all about in the first place.

    This lot move to all-out nuclear warfare within about 12 hours flat via Twitter. *shakes head*

    Hint: send a letter by post, it takes longer to get there.

  8. It’s turning into a farce now.

    France has evidence Syria did it now Russia has evidence we did it ? I would love to see all this evidence I really would.

    I’m really bored with it now it’s just the same old story been going on for 5 years, accusations and counter accusations.

    • Well, the solution to Syria is quite easy basically. The Russians encourage NATO to have a permanent naval base in the Black Sea, perhaps Romania, and the West encourages Russia to have a permanent naval base in Syria. No problem, now, what to jointly do about Assad?

      • NATO building a permanent ajoint alliance base in the Black Sea would be almost as likely to start a war as striking Syria.
        They would either restart the Transnistria-Moldova conflict to destabilize Romania and Moldova.
        That is if they didn’t regard it as a prelude to intervention in Ukraine and moving on Southern Russia. So instead stop pretending with a proxy war and go to full-scale war in Ukraine. To seize Kiev before NATO or the EU could react.

      • I don’t think naval bases will cut it bud, it’s a lot bigger than that.

        It’s a geopolitical chess game between the US and Russia.

        Like nearly every conflict in the middle east this boils down to money, geopolitics, sphere of influence and control.

        The US wants a gulf pipeline from Qatar through Saudia Arabia, Syria and under the med, this is to counter Russia’s monopoly on EU’s oil needs and enhance the Petro Dollar (all US allies sell oil in US dollars)

        Assad flatly rejected this idea.

        Assad wants a pipeline from Iran through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon under the med and into Europe, this is to complement and enhance Russian dominance in oil to Europe this was announced at the start of July 2011.

        On the 29th of that same July, 9 members of Syria’s army defects and forms the Free Syrian Army, fully funded by the US.

        This has nothing to do with Assad being “evil” this isn’t some heroic humanitarian mission. The official US position on why it wants Assad gone are “human rights abuses” and “genocide”

        So why arnt we in Niger, South Sudan, Myanmar, Palestine, Congo or Chad?

        This operation is solely to protect the petro dollar and maintain US dominance in the region.

        So a naval base on the Black Sea just ain’t guna cut the mustard with the yanks pal.

        • Unfortunately for this particular narrative, your timeline is completely off and missing many of the realities of a potential pipeline project.

          1. Neither of these pipelines, not the Iran-based one or the Qatar-based ones ever made it past even the initial proposal stages, and certainly weren’t even close to getting off the ground.

          2. Covert action against Iran and Syria started much earlier, under the Bush Administration (2005-2007), long before even the first supposedly rejection of the pipeline (2009).

          3. There’s no proof that the Qatar proposal ever existed.

          4. A number of other Europe-directed pipeline projects have been in the works in the region for the last 20 years, and they have all universally failed at one stage or another.

          Here is a good source: http://www.middleeasteye.net/essays/pipelineistan-conspiracy-why-war-syria-was-never-about-gas-144022537

          The truth is, well the pipeline Hurst and Siri is somewhat intriguing, the reality of Syria is that it is standard geopolitics at work. Russia vs. the United States, Iran vs. Saudi Arabia, etc. This doesn’t make it any less nefarious, but right now what you see is generally what you get.

          • Hi mate

            A good sauce? It’s a website that’s been operating for not even 3 years ran by 20 people in London.

            Although some of their stuff is good this is just an opinion.

            The US has been involved in Syria since the 50’s, so there is only one timeline to follow.

            I’ve said in a few threads I don’t have all the answer, there is too much going on, that pipeline comment was just another angle in this, and nobody can really discredit it totally.

        • Hi Elliott and Sole Survivor.
          Yes, I know, I did say it in an absurd idealistic sense knowing fine it wouldn’t happen, but that would achieve balance.

  10. Why not? The murderous British were the first to use poison gas in Mesopotamia and have been murdering folks ever since. Look at the mess they caused in my country. Criminals.

    • Except that’s not true, the Spartans used burning wood, pitch and sulphur to poison the besieged Athenians in the 5th century BCE. There was also gas warfare in the Roman-Persian wars.

      The first time we used chemical warfare was actually during the reign of Henry III, using calcium oxide to blind an invading French fleet.

      So get your facts right pal.

      • Interesting comments Sole.

        I’m into my Roman history especially so am very interested in the comment on gas being used between Rome and Parthia, have not heard of that?

        Anything to stop the Parthian shot!

        • Morning Daniel

          If you google the siege of Dura Europos there is a bit of reading online about the use of chemical weapons during the siege.

          In summary it was the Sassanian empire that came after the Parthian empire, the Sassanians dug tunnels to get into the Roman city of Dura Europos, the Romans dug tunnels to meet them underground to counter, when the Persians realised the Romans were digging tunnels as well they gassed them using sulphur and pitch, 20 Roman soldiers were killed.

          This only case to light in 2007, they found 20 Roman soldiers buried in Syria and examined the bodies and found other clues in the tunnels, there was an article in the telegraph about it as well.

  11. Russia knows the more it can muddy the waters, the more confusion will lead to pressure from our populations to do nothing. To do nothing would be to say to any perversve ruler they can use chemical weapons whenever they like. Under the Soviets Russia spent most of it’s properganda efforts decieving it’s own captive populations; under Putin nowhere is unaffected.

  12. Most common argument I’ve heard from Kremlin trolls and Russian supervisors is them questioning why Syria would launch a chemical attack when they’re winning and draw the ire of the West. Then hilariously im the same sentence they’ll descend into a rant about it all bring a western conspiracy and that the west is responsible, compeltly ignoring how ludicrous that is.

  13. Sheezer
    Come on Ruskin. Put that vodka bottle down and talk some sense.
    Russia is as guilty as hell and in breach of the world wide ban on proliferation and use of chemical weapons.
    Russia can threaten and try to lay false accusations but it will not work. The whole world does not believe the Russian’s and the more they squirm about trying to lay false news the more guilty the appear. Top tip Russia.
    Take the 5th ammendement and say nothing that way you do not hang yourself in your own guilt.
    Things are looking from though with the UN chief himself saying this is the rerun of the cold war except all the checks and safeguards in place then to prevent and stop conflict between super powers no longer exist.
    Russia needs to tread very carefully as does NATO. We will strike militarily the Syrian regimens chemical weapons , 3C and air defence sites. Russia would be wise not to try to actively engage our forces for the simple fact Russia is at least a generation behind us in weaponry and they know it.
    In the 1st+2nd gulf war Iraq had some of Russia’s most upto date military exports at that time and they were brushed away with minimal alliance loses.
    If you take out WMD and look at a purely conventional war between Russia and NATO Russia will loose within 6 months.

  14. If Russia has any hard factual evidence of Britain Organizing or even Instigating this Chemical Atrocity in Syria then it must Present the Evidence to the International Community via The United Nations immediately. For All Our Sakes. I will await with interest.

  16. Bless them. They just can’t help telling fibs. It’s rather weak really. To be fair it’s such a shame they were too scared to use their S400s for fear of WW3 ensuing. Obviously they would lose WW3 and be reduced to an agricultural economy and Putin with the title of Chief Farmer.

  17. They (the Russian’s must be smarting) if they had turned on their S400 wonder weapons our rivet aircraft would have got some good data on bandwidth and countermeasures we could use. So they turned them off. Wise move but makes you wonder why Russia has even deployed the system when they are not prepared to use them.
    The Russian’s are keeping quiet the death of several hundred of their volunteers soldiers several weeks ago. US is not shouting it from the rooftops.
    The Russian’s were in a huge armoured battle group moving up to attack a Kurdish stronghold. Unfortunately enroute to attack the Kurds they went passed a clearly labelled and we’ll sign posted US special forces post. Theresa Ian’s stupidly attacked the US outpost to then be rapidly hit by waves of F18As and apaches. Once the front and rear sections of the Russian armoured battle group were immobilised (destroyed) the armoured column was utterly whacked. Over 300 Russian elite soldiers (volunteers) were killed. Russia has kept it quiet as has the US but the battle has been independently verified by Kurdish and free Syrian forces and widely evidenced on the internet.
    I do not think their S400 system can be any good if it fails to protect over 300 of their armed forces from being killed in a utterly stupid attack against a us special forces base.

    • Why would a US Special forces installation be well sign posted?? It would be covert.

      Sorry this sounds like utter nonsense.

    • I was curious so looked online.

      Allegedly these were Russian mercenaries, with a Syrian column that crossed the Euphrates into territory which is in the US zone of operations, and was attacked from the air.

      Your comment about “Elite Russian volunteer soldiers” had me thinking these were regular troops or Speznatz, as not all the Russian army is conscript.

      So being mercs they have plausible deniability so the Russians will deny they were ever there. The wests SF sometimes operate the same way.

  20. Maybe I’m being wildly optimistic here but I’d hope any UK unit who are forced to use chemical weapons would kick up a real fuss about it and they’d likely face a wave of resignations and leaks about it to the media.
    I know the military are trained to follow orders but we’re also told to follow the rules of war and basic decency against an enemy. I honestly can’t see the British military following an order to gas civilians.

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