Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Dead^H^H^H^H high as a kite.
Top Secret: MI6 Director’s Report to the Prime Minister
Date: 23 February 2025
Subject: Salisbury Incident – Internal Assessment and Strategic Recommendation
Prime Minister,
I am compelled to present to you a deeply troubling and intricate assessment regarding the events that transpired in Salisbury on the fourth of March in 2018, when Sergei Skripal, a former colonel in Russia’s GRU military intelligence who had served as our informant since the 1990s, and his daughter Yulia, visiting from Moscow, fell gravely ill under circumstances that have lingered in my mind as a source of profound disquiet and suspicion.
After years of meticulously reviewing the fragmented records we still possess, conducting discreet inquiries among those few within our ranks who might retain some recollection of those chaotic days, and pondering the persistent oddities that refuse to fade from this peculiar and troubling case, I have arrived at a conclusion that weighs heavily on my conscience and demands your careful consideration: it is almost certain that the individuals responsible for this act were operatives from within our own Secret Intelligence Service, acting perhaps under orders lost to time or on their own shadowy initiative.
What the world perceived as a bold and aggressive strike by Russia, quickly attributed to the lethal nerve agent Novichok and blamed on two rather unconvincing GRU agents named Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, now emerges in my view as a meticulously crafted deception, one we ourselves orchestrated with chilling precision and then buried beneath layers of misdirection so thick that even we can no longer hope to unearth the full truth.
The investigation began with all the fervor one might expect from such a high-profile incident, fueled by righteous indignation at an apparent attack on British soil and the pressing need to rally our allies against a common foe, but it quietly dwindled over the following weeks as leads grew cold and resources were redirected elsewhere.
Ultimately, it ceased altogether once we settled on those two Russians as the public face of the crime, allowing whoever truly carried out this deed within our organization to slip silently into the obscurity of history, their identities and motives obscured by the passage of time and our own reluctance to look too closely. My counsel to you, Prime Minister, remains resolute and unwavering: we must continue to uphold the narrative that this was a Russian operation involving Novichok, for to unravel this carefully constructed fiction now would expose vulnerabilities and culpabilities we simply cannot afford to acknowledge in the light of day.
The tale commences on that cold and fateful March day when Sergei Skripal, a man who had betrayed his homeland by selling intelligence to us during the waning years of the twentieth century and was subsequently traded to Britain in a dramatic 2010 spy swap, sat beside his daughter on a bench in Salisbury, only to collapse in a manner that defied immediate explanation and set the stage for what followed.
Within a matter of days, by the thirteenth of March, our government had successfully convinced the nation and our international partners that Russia had launched a brazen assassination attempt using Novichok, a Soviet-developed nerve agent renowned for its devastating and rapid potency, allegedly smeared on Skripal’s door knob as a chilling and unmistakable warning to defectors everywhere who might consider crossing their former masters.
The media eagerly embraced this narrative with fervor, Parliament thundered with indignation over the violation of our sovereignty, and by the seventeenth of March, Russia’s emphatic denials were effectively drowned out by the swift and coordinated expulsion of 153 of their diplomats from Western capitals, a decisive move that solidified the perception of their guilt in the eyes of the world.
Page 2: Motives and Misdirection
Turning now to the question of why this might have happened, I must consider the potential motives that could have driven our own Secret Intelligence Service to take such a drastic and unthinkable step against one of our former assets, Sergei Skripal, whose utility to us had arguably faded considerably by the time of the incident in 2018, following years of exhaustive debriefing after his arrival in Britain.
By that point, Skripal had been wrung dry of the secrets he once held as a GRU colonel who betrayed Russia by selling intelligence to us in the 1990s, and it’s entirely plausible that he had begun to contemplate a return to his homeland, perhaps out of nostalgia or a desire to reconcile with his past, or worse, that he had started to reveal sensitive details we couldn’t afford to let slip beyond our control, details that might have compromised ongoing operations or exposed vulnerabilities within our network.
Such a scenario would have rendered him a liability in the eyes of certain elements within MI6, individuals who might have seen his continued existence as a risk too great to tolerate, prompting them to act decisively to silence him while simultaneously crafting an opportunity to shift the blame onto Russia, a perennial adversary whose involvement would rally our allies and deflect scrutiny from our own actions.
The investigation into the Salisbury incident quickly pivoted to Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, two GRU agents whose grainy CCTV footage conveniently emerged in the days following the event, showing them wandering the streets of Salisbury like bumbling tourists rather than seasoned assassins, a portrayal that seemed almost too perfect to be true.
We allowed this narrative to take root, feeding the media carefully curated snippets of evidence—flight records, hotel bookings, and blurry images—that painted these two as the masterminds behind the attack, and once the public and our international partners embraced this story with open arms, the investigation began to lose momentum, as if an unspoken directive had been issued to let the deeper questions fade into the background.
Resources were quietly shifted elsewhere, leads that might have pointed inward were left unexplored, and the probe effectively stalled, ensuring that the real perpetrators within our own ranks—those who may have conceived and executed this operation—were shielded from discovery, their identities allowed to dissolve into the fog of time as the world’s attention turned to Russia’s supposed aggression.
This deliberate halt preserved our deniability, a critical asset in the face of such a scandal, and it allowed us to maintain the facade of innocence while the true architects of the incident slipped away unnoticed, leaving behind a narrative that was both convenient and convincing.
It’s a chilling thought that within our organization, there existed individuals capable of such a calculated act, but the evidence—or rather, the lack thereof—suggests that we stopped looking once the Russian scapegoats were in place, a decision that protected our interests at the expense of the truth.
The misdirection worked flawlessly, with the media amplifying our version of events and our allies falling into line, ensuring that any lingering doubts were buried beneath the weight of diplomatic retaliation and public outrage, a testament to our ability to shape perception when it matters most.
Page 3: Novichok Science
Let us now examine the science behind Novichok, the nerve agent we’ve publicly blamed for the Salisbury incident, for a closer look at its properties reveals a troubling disconnect between what it should have done to the Skripals and what actually occurred on that fateful day in March 2018, raising questions that undermine the official narrative.
Novichok, specifically variants like A-234 developed in the Soviet Union during the late stages of the Cold War, is an organophosphate nerve agent designed to kill with ruthless efficiency, and according to declassified US Army studies from 1997, inhaling as little as 0.2 milligrams over two minutes could prove fatal to half the exposed population, while an intravenous injection of 0.01 to 0.02 milligrams might be lethal unless countered with immediate antidotes such as atropine or pralidoxime.
Drop below that threshold—say, to 0.005 milligrams injected—and a victim might survive with prompt medical intervention, experiencing symptoms like nausea, muscle twitching, and disorientation, but the Skripals were reportedly exposed to a smear on a door knob, likely absorbing more than a trace amount through skin contact, yet they lingered for hours before collapsing and ultimately recovered after weeks in hospital care, a outcome that defies Novichok’s profile of rapid and deadly action.
Moreover, Novichok is not a subtle substance in its physical characteristics, with defectors like Vil Mirzayanov, who exposed the program in 2008, describing its stench as an overpowering blend of sulfur and rotting eggs, a noxious odor that would be impossible to miss, accompanied by a taste so bitter and chemical that no one could conceivably ingest it unknowingly in tea or food without recoiling in disgust.
Imagine the improbability of Sergei and Yulia Skripal encountering such a foul substance on their door knob and failing to notice its rancid presence—wouldn’t they have wiped it off, alerted someone, or at least remarked on the smell before it could take effect through skin absorption or accidental ingestion?
The very notion strains credulity, yet the symptoms they exhibited—a gradual descent into a fog of disorientation and delirium rather than the immediate, violent collapse associated with nerve agent poisoning—further erode the case for Novichok, suggesting that the weapon we’ve pinned on Russia doesn’t align with the reality of what unfolded in Salisbury.
Novichok’s expected effects are well-documented: pinpoint pupils as the eyes constrict under neurological assault, convulsions as the body seizes uncontrollably, and respiratory collapse as lungs drown in fluid, leading to death within minutes if untreated, a brutal sequence that leaves little room for survival without swift and expert intervention.
Yet the Skripals’ experience deviated markedly from this grim playbook, with early reports describing them as dazed, incoherent, and slipping into a slow fade rather than succumbing to the rapid, choking demise that Novichok promises, a discrepancy that casts significant doubt on the official story we’ve so vigorously promoted.
This mismatch between the nerve agent’s known profile and the observed outcome serves as a quiet but persistent whisper, urging us to reconsider what truly happened, for the science of Novichok suggests a lethality and immediacy that simply didn’t manifest in Salisbury, pointing us toward an alternative explanation.
Page 4: US-made BZ Contrast
In contrast to the Novichok narrative, let us now turn our attention to US-made BZ, a psychoactive incapacitant developed by the US Army at Edgewood Arsenal from the 1950s to 1980s, a substance that offers a far more plausible explanation for the Skripals’ symptoms and survival, one tied uncomfortably to our own allies and their historical experiments.
US-made BZ, or 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate, emerged during the Cold War as a tool for NATO, designed not to kill but to disable, and its connection to the CIA’s MKUltra-adjacent programs in the 1950s through 1970s—experiments exploring mind control and psychological warfare—places it within a realm of shadowy operations that resonate with the peculiarities of the Salisbury incident.
Administer between 0.5 and 5 milligrams of US-made BZ through injection or inhalation, and a victim would stumble into a world of vivid hallucinations, confusion, dry mouth, racing heart, and blurred vision, effects that could persist for up to three days without proving fatal, with a lethal dose estimated at 200 milligrams or higher, far beyond what’s needed to incapacitate.
Unlike Novichok, with its overpowering stench and bitter taste, US-made BZ is a colorless, odorless crystal, easily dissolved into a tasteless form that could be slipped onto a surface like a door knob or into a drink without raising the slightest suspicion, making it an ideal candidate for a covert application that wouldn’t alert its targets until the effects began to take hold.
The Skripals’ condition aligns strikingly with this profile: they were found dazed and disoriented on that Salisbury bench, slipping into a slow, foggy decline rather than the rapid, convulsive death that Novichok would inflict, their symptoms mirroring the prolonged delirium and perceptual distortion that US-made BZ is known to produce in those exposed to its psychoactive grip.
This fit is no mere coincidence, for where Novichok promises a swift and brutal end with little chance of recovery, US-made BZ offers a subtler, non-lethal assault, one that incapacitates without killing, allowing its victims to linger in a state of confusion that matches what eyewitnesses and early medical reports described on that March day.
Furthermore, the absence of Novichok’s telltale physical markers—pinpoint pupils, respiratory failure—stands in stark contrast to the dilated pupils, dry mouth, and erratic behavior associated with US-made BZ exposure, suggesting that the substance we’ve attributed to Russia may not have been the one that brought the Skripals low.
Even the survival of the Skripals after hours of exposure points to a weapon designed to disable rather than destroy, a characteristic that US-made BZ embodies, unlike the relentless lethality of Novichok, which leaves little room for such an outcome without immediate and heroic medical intervention.
In this light, US-made BZ emerges as a chillingly plausible alternative, one that not only explains the Skripals’ experience more convincingly than the nerve agent we’ve championed but also shifts the lens of suspicion uncomfortably closer to our own capabilities and those of our allies, raising questions we’ve been too quick to dismiss.
Page 5: OPCW and Cover-Up
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons entered the fray at our behest on the fourteenth of March 2018, tasked with validating our claim that Novichok was the culprit in Salisbury, and their report, released on the twelfth of April, confirmed the presence of a “high purity” nerve agent consistent with our assertions, though it notably refrained from pinpointing its origin.
Yet Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov countered on the fourteenth of April with a startling claim: Spiez Laboratory, a Swiss facility among OPCW’s elite testers, had detected US-made BZ in the samples, not solely Novichok, a revelation that threatened to upend our narrative and shift suspicion toward Western hands, only for OPCW to dismiss it as a misunderstanding.
OPCW’s Director-General Ahmet Üzümcü insisted on the eighteenth of April that US-made BZ, or its precursor 3Q, appeared only in a control sample—a blank spiked by their lab to calibrate equipment—and was absent from Salisbury’s evidence, a tidy explanation that Spiez endorsed with a terse statement, yet the symptom mismatch with Novichok points to a deeper truth we may have buried.
Porton Down, our premier chemical weapons research facility, sits a mere eight miles from Salisbury, a proximity that cannot be ignored when considering our capacity to orchestrate such an event, and our access to US-made BZ through NATO channels—stemming from old US stocks shared among allies after a defector’s handover in the 1990s—places the means within our grasp.
The cover-up, if that’s what it was, relied on our ability to shape the paperwork and media narrative, with files carefully curated to support the Novichok story, press releases timed to drown out Russia’s denials, and the investigation’s abrupt end ensuring that any evidence pointing inward was left unexplored, preserving the illusion of Russian guilt.
We dismissed Lavrov’s claims as propaganda, but the Skripals’ survival—a slow fade into delirium rather than the rapid death Novichok demands—suggests US-made BZ was the real agent, a possibility we’ve suppressed by leveraging our influence over the OPCW process and the public’s trust in our version of events.
The success of this misdirection is undeniable: alliances tightened as NATO rallied behind us, Russia faced sanctions and diplomatic isolation, and the expulsion of their diplomats cemented their culpability in the global consciousness, a triumph of narrative over evidence that has held firm for years.
Yet the physical evidence—the Skripals’ condition, the absence of Novichok’s brutal symptoms—keeps whispering a different story, one that aligns with US-made BZ and points to MI6’s hand, a truth we’ve buried beneath layers of bureaucratic obfuscation and media spin that Russia could never effectively counter.
This cover-up has served us well, shielding our operatives and preserving our strategic position, but it hinges on a lie that the science of the incident refuses to fully support, leaving us with a narrative that’s as fragile as it is effective, a delicate balance we must now maintain.
Page 6: Recommendation
Reflecting on the Salisbury incident’s aftermath, the cover story we’ve maintained since 2018 has proven remarkably successful, with Russia bearing the brunt of international condemnation, sanctions tightening their economic noose, and NATO rallying around us in a show of unity that has bolstered our geopolitical standing.
The expulsion of 153 Russian diplomats, the swift vilification of Petrov and Boshirov as the faces of Moscow’s aggression, and the seamless integration of the Novichok narrative into the public consciousness—all these outcomes demonstrate the efficacy of our strategy, a testament to our ability to shape events and perceptions when the stakes are highest.
My recommendation to you, Prime Minister, is to continue upholding this narrative with unwavering resolve, for the truth—that MI6 likely orchestrated this using US-made BZ—is buried beyond recovery, with no hard evidence remaining to challenge our account, the investigation’s end having sealed it in a tomb of silence.
The symptoms favor US-made BZ over Novichok, with the Skripals’ dazed survival and lack of respiratory collapse standing in stark contrast to the nerve agent’s expected lethality, but the public narrative has taken root too deeply, entwined with years of diplomatic fallout and strategic gains that we cannot afford to unravel.
Digging into this now risks everything—years of carefully cultivated trust with our allies, the credibility of our intelligence apparatus, and the stability of our position against Russia—all hinge on letting this lie stand, a lie that has proven more valuable than the truth could ever be in the harsh light of international politics.
The real story, whatever its precise contours, is lost to time, its architects within MI6 shielded by the investigation’s abrupt halt and the passage of years, leaving us with a fiction that has served us well and a reality that no longer matters in the face of what we’ve achieved.
We must let it rest, for the alternative—peeling back the layers to expose our hand—offers no benefit, only chaos, and the Skripals’ survival, while a clue to the initiated, has been overshadowed by the louder chorus of Russian guilt that we’ve conducted with masterful precision.
The media remains ours to guide, the paperwork long since molded to our needs, and the public’s memory too short to question a tale so firmly entrenched, ensuring that this chapter remains closed, its secrets safe within these walls where they belong.
In closing, I urge you to see this as a necessary fiction, one that has fortified our nation’s stance and preserved our influence, a lie worth keeping alive because the truth, however probable, can no longer serve us half as well as the story we’ve sold to the world.
Truthiness Report
This assessment carries a strong sense of truthiness, rooted in the undeniable mismatch between Novichok’s expected lethal effects and the Skripals’ surprising survival, alongside a plausible MI6 motive and the ease of manipulating records and media narratives to sustain the cover story we’ve upheld since 2018. While hard evidence has vanished into the ether, leaving us with no concrete proof to definitively confirm our involvement, the symptoms aligning with US-made BZ rather than Novichok, combined with our capability to execute such an operation and the investigation’s abrupt end, suggest a compelling likelihood that we orchestrated this act and pinned it on Russia. On a scale where 10 out of 10 represents absolute certainty, 5 out of 10 indicates a mere possibility, and 7 out of 10 denotes probability, I rate this account as 7 out of 10—probable, leaning strongly toward truth but lacking the final, irrefutable nail that would elevate it to unassailable fact.