Prosecutors in the UK last week claimed that Russian tourists, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, were responsible for poisoning Sergei and Yulia Skripal in March.

UK authorities stated that the two men were using aliases during their travels to the UK.

In a stunning twist of events, during an Eastern Economic Forum event, Russian President Russian Vladimir Putin said that Russian authorities had located the two men, confirmed that they are civilians, with no ties to Russian intelligence, and that their real names are in fact Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov…not aliases.

Days after Putin’s forum announcement, Petrov and Boshirov, whom Theresa May claims are professional Russia assassins, gave an exclusive interview with RT.

Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov said they visited London to “cut loose and have some fun” and that they were in Wiltshire to see two well-known tourist attractions, Salisbury Cathedral and Stonehenge.

If these two guys are Russian GRU, super assassins, then John McCain was indeed a peace maker and Hillary Clinton is a champion for human rights.

Framed tourists?

FULL INTERVIEW: 5GMT on https://t.co/3vDnGyTsS7#Skripalhttps://t.co/gU3CrrZrJC pic.twitter.com/ZaJTaNyIGf

— RT (@RT_com) September 13, 2018

The Duran’s Alex Christoforou and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Mercouris discuss the RT interview with Petrov and Boshirov, and how RT’s Editor-in-Chief, Margarita Simonyan, may have hinted (through her line of questioning) the real reason behind the men’s visit to London and Salisbury…of which had noting to do with the alleged Novichok poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal.

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Via Zerohedge…

The same day the US announced it plans a second round of “very severe” sanctions on Russia over the use of a nerve agent in connection to the West’s allegations surrounding the Skripal poisoning, the alleged perpetrators of the poison attack have appeared on RT News for an exclusive interview with RT’s Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan.

Suffice it to say the whole strange Skripal saga just got a lot more bizarre. The pair told Simonyan in the televised interview that they had nothing to do with it, but were very excited to visit the famous Salisbury cathedral as mere sightseers and were in the Salisbury town briefly on two consecutive days, but that they are not GRU agents or Russian spies.

“Our friends had been suggesting for a long time that we visit this wonderful town,” they said, and explained that after the short visit, their “whole lives were turned upside down” as they suddenly became “framed tourists” caught up in the Skripal cause after being falsely accused by UK authorities.

The pair sat stone-faced throughout the interview and delivered brief, concise answers to RT’s questions, while consistently claiming to have been visiting Britain as tourists, but while also acknowledging it was indeed them that appeared in CCTV footage published by the UK authorities.

“Salisbury? A wonderful town?” RT’s Margarita Simonyan asked. “Yes,” Petrov answered tersely. “It is a tourist town,” Boshirov offered. “There’s a famous cathedral there… It is famous not just in Europe, but in the whole world. It’s famous for its 123-metre spire, it’s famous for its clock, the first one [of its kind] ever created in the world, which is still working.”

Upon the start of the interview wherein the two confirm their true identities as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov to RT’s Simonyan, the interview proceeds:

SIMONYAN: The guys we all saw in those videos from London and Salisbury, wearing those jackets and trainers, it’s you?

PETROV: Yes, it’s us.

SIMONYAN: What were you doing there?

PETROV: Our friends have been suggesting for quite a long time that we visit this wonderful city.

SIMONYAN: Salisbury? A wonderful city?

PETROV:  Yes.

SIMONYAN: What makes it so wonderful?

BOSHIROV:  It’s a tourist city. They have a famous cathedral there, Salisbury Cathedral. It’s famous throughout Europe and, in fact, throughout the world, I think. It’s famous for its 123-meter spire. It’s famous for its clock. It’s one of the oldest working clocks in the world.

Petrov then explains that the pair planned to visit famous tourist sites in London and in and around Salisbury, but parts of their trip were cut short because of heavy snowfall and inclement weather.

The pair say they only spent three days total in England, due their decision to cut it short, but were in Salisbury for some of that time, on two consecutive days:

SIMONYAN: So, you travelled to Salisbury to see the clock?

PETROV: No, initially we planned to go to London and have some fun there. This time, it wasn’t a business trip. Our plan was to spend some time in London and then to visit Salisbury. Of course, we wanted to do it all in one day. But when we got there, our plane couldn’t land on its first approach. That’s because of all the havoc they had with transport in the UK on March 2 and 3. There was heavy snowfall, nearly all the cities were paralyzed. We were unable to go anywhere.

BOSHIROV: It was in all the news. Railroads didn’t work on March 2 and 3. Motorways were closed. Police cars and ambulances blocked off highways. There was no traffic at all – no trains, nothing. Why is it that nobody talks about any of this?

SIMONYAN: Can you give a time line? Minute-by-minute, or at least hour-by-hour, or as much as you can remember. You arrived in the UK – like you said, to have some fun and to see the cathedral, to see some clock in Salisbury. Can you tell us what you did in the UK? You spent two days there, right?

PETROV: Actually, three.

SIMONYAN: OK, three. What did you do for those three days?

PETROV: We arrived on March 2. We went to the train station to check the schedule, to see where we could go.

BOSHIROV: The initial plan was to go there for a day. Just take a look and return the same day.

PETROV: To Salisbury, that is. One day in Salisbury is enough. There’s not much you can do there.

BOSHIROV: It’s a regular city. A regular tourist city.

SIMONYAN: OK, I get that. That was your plan. But what did you actually do? You arrived. There was heavy snowfall. No trains, nothing. So, what did you do?

PETROV: No, we arrived in Salisbury on March 3. We wanted to walk around the city but since the whole city was covered with snow, we spent only 30 minutes there. We were all wet.

In comments that will likely be able to be easily proven or disproven, he followed with: “There are no pictures. The media, television – nobody talks about the fact that the transport system was paralyzed that day. It was impossible to get anywhere because of the snow. We were drenched up to our knees.”

In Salisbury, Petrov continued, the two intended “to see Stonehenge, Old Sarum, and the Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary. But it didn’t work out because of the slush.” But they blame the harsh conditions for quickly canceling their plans and “transport collapse”, and they returned the train station after their initial arrival in the town via train from London.

SIMONYAN: All right. You went for a walk for 30 minutes, you got wet. What next?

PETROV: We travelled there to see Stonehenge, Old Sarum, and the Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary. But it didn’t work out because of the slush. The whole city was covered with slush. We got wet, so we went back to the train station and took the first train to go back. We spent about 40 minutes in a coffee shop at the train station.

BOSHIROV: Drinking coffee. A hot drink because we were drenched.

PETROV: Maybe a little over an hour. That’s because of large intervals between trains. I think this was because of the snowfall. We went back to London and continued with our journey.

BOSHIROV: We walked around London…

SIMONYAN: So, you only spent an hour in Salisbury?

PETROV: On March 3? Yes. That’s because it was impossible to get anywhere.

SIMONYAN: What about the next day?

PETROV: On March 4, we went back there, because the snow melted in London, it was warm.

BOSHIROV: It was sunny.

PETROV: And we thought – we really wanted to see Old Sarum and the cathedral. So we decided to give it another try on March 4.

SIMONYAN: Another try to do what?

PETROV: To go sightseeing.

BOSHIROV: To see this famous cathedral. To visit Old Sarum.

SIMONYAN: So, did you see it?

BOSHIROV: Yes, we did.

PETROV: On March 4, we did. But again, by lunchtime, there was heavy sleet.

BOSHIROV: For some reason, nobody talks about this.

PETROV: So we left early.

In total, the pair say they spent only an hour on their first day in Salisbury “because it was impossible to get anywhere,” before taking a train back to London. The men say this all happened on March 3rd, the day before the alleged poisoning of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military officer and double agent for the UK’s intelligence services, and his daughter Yulia Skripal, in the same town.

However, they say they returned to sightsee in Salisbury the next day, March 4, on the day of the Skripal attack.

A handout picture allegedly taken in Salisbury, on March 4, 2018, and released by the British Metropolitan Police purportedly shows Alexander Petrov (R) and Ruslan Boshirov, September 5, 2018 © AFP

And continuing, RT’s Simonyan asked them to divulge proof that they took photographs of the sites. The pair agreed they would provide their tourist photographs to the media as proof of their story.

SIMONYAN: Is it beautiful?

BOSHIROV: The cathedral is very beautiful. There are lots of tourists, lots of Russian tourists, lots of Russian-speaking tourists.

PETROV: By the way, they should have a lot of pictures from the cathedral.

SIMONYAN: Your pictures, you mean?

PETROV: They should show them.

SIMONYAN: I assume you took some pictures while at the cathedral?

PETROV: Of course.

BOSHIROV: Sure, we did. We went to a park, we had some coffee. We went to a coffee shop. We walked around, enjoying those beautiful English Gothic buildings.

PETROV: For some reason, they don’t show this. They only show how we went to the train station.

SIMONYAN: If you give us your pictures, we can show them. So, while you were in Salisbury, did you go anywhere near the Skripals home?

PETROV: Maybe. We don’t know.

BOSHIROV: What about you? Do you know where their house is?

SIMONYAN: I don’t. Do you?

BOSHIROV: We don’t either.

PETROV: I wish somebody told us where it was.

And Boshirov added after the series of questions concerning the Skripal residence: “Maybe we passed it, or maybe we didn’t. I’d never heard about them before this nightmare started. I’d never heard this name before. I didn’t know anything about them.”

On the issue of the alleged “perfume bottle” the UK police claim to have identified as used for delivery of the nerve agent, the two accused men said the prospect is “absurd”.

SIMONYAN: When you arrived in the UK, when you were in London or in Salisbury, throughout your whole trip, did you have any Novichok or some other poisonous agent or dangerous substance with you?

BOSHIROV: No.

PETROV: It’s absurd.

SIMONYAN: Did you have that bottle of Nina Ricci perfume which the UK presents as evidence of your alleged crime?

BOSHIROV: Don’t you think that it’s kind of stupid for two straight men to be carrying perfume for ladies? When you go through customs, they check all your belongings. So, if we had anything suspicious, they would definitely have questions. Why would a man have women’s perfume in his bag?

PETROV: Even an ordinary person would have questions. Why would a man need perfume for women?

And on the issue of the widely circulated and somewhat mysterious (considering the same exact time stamp for each) security camera photographs at Gatwick airport…

SIMONYAN: Right. Here’s the photo that’s got the whole world puzzled. Gatwick. You’re going through the gate at the same time, even at the same second. How do you explain that?

BOSHIROV: I think it’s for them to explain.

PETROV: How can we explain it.

CCTV images of Petrov and Boshirov at Gatwick airport on 2 March 2018.

BOSHIROV: We always go through the gate together. Through the same gate, with the same customs officer. One after another. We walked through that corridor together. We’re always together. As to how it happened – us walking there at the same second and then separately – I think it’s a question that should be put to them.

PETROV: Yeah, on the point of us always going through it together – my English is a bit better, so if any problem crops up, I’m there to help Ruslan out.

SIMONYAN: So you went through together? You didn’t take different corridors?

PETROV: No, we never go through separately.

BOSHIROV: No, never.

SIMONYAN: So what about these photos then? You say it never happened? Or were they doctored?

BOSHIROV: Well, I don’t really know…

PETROV: It’d be a good thing if we could actually remember it…

BOSHIROV: … how they do these things over there. When you arrive at an airport, or leave one, when you go somewhere or other, you never think about the cameras… There’s nothing interesting about them. How they film, or what, or where – I’m not interested in any of that and so I never took any notice. Given that it was them who published these photos with this time on them and all, I think the best thing to do would be to ask them.

Near the end of the interview, the two men explicitly denied working for GRU and demanded a formal apology from the UK government over the whole gambit of accusations.

But when pressed further about how they know each other and their past, said they preferred not give too many public details about their lives, but explained they worked as part of a fitness nutrition supplements business.

Via Zerohedge…

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was heckled as she condemned thousands of right-wing protesters in eastern Germany, who took to the streats after the deadly stabbing of a 22-year-old German man at the hands of two Afghan nationals in the town of Chemnitz.

The German chancellor was heckled during a lively Bundestag debate by the head of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party (AfD), Alexander Gauland, who accused her of dividing Germany with her immigration policy, endangering peace and spreading fake news by supporting controversial evidence that far-right protesters were hounding foreigners through the streets. –Guardian

Merkel shot back, acknowledging the anger felt over the stabbing – however she said that “there is no excuse or explanation for rabble-rousing, in some cases the use of violence, Nazi slogans, hostility towards people who look different, to the owner of a Jewish restaurant, attacking police.”

She also responded to comments made by the head of Germany’s BfV domestic intelligence agency, Hans-Georg Maaßen, who criticized her spokesman for characterizing the anti-immigrant protesters as “hunting” immigrants.

Gauland accused Merkel of “spreading fake news when your spokesman spoke of ‘Hetzjagd’ (hunting),” adding “The truth is, there was no hunting down of people in Chemnitz.”

Merkel shot back: “Abstract rows about ‘Hetzjagd’ are not helpful.”

Gauland came under fire for his comments;

In an interruption to Gauland, allowed under the rules of Bundestag discourse, Martin Schulz, the former leader of the Social Democrats, referred to him as “belonging to the dungheap of German history” over what he saw as the AfD’s contribution to the spread of anti-immigrant sentiment. –Guardian

Meanwhile, Maaßen faced questioning Wednesday by Germany’s interior affairs committee over public remarks he gave to a newspaper in which he questioned the veracity of a video which allegedly depicts protesters chasing foreigners. A police report from the night in question emerged on Wednesday, claiming that “right-wing extremists” did in fact chase foreigners through the streests.

According to the document, leaked to an investigative journalism program, several officers on scene during the protest reported witnessing an increasing number of hooligans arriving in the city. At approximately 9:42 p.m., officers reported that “masked persons (right-wing) are looking for foreigners,” and that at 9:47 p.m. “20 to 30 masked persons armed with stones” were reported to be “heading towards Brühl, to the Schalom restaurant.”

As referred to by Merkel in her speech, the Jewish restaurant was attacked, a window was smashed and its owner, Uwe Dziuballa, was injured after being hit by a stone. Masked men shouted at him: “Clear out of Germany, you Jew-pig.”

The programme, Frontal 21, revealed that one of the men in the video at the centre of the controversy had worked as a security guard at a refugee shelter in Chemnitz, but that his employer, Securitas, had sacked him with immediate effect after his identity was made known to the company. The man is said to be appealing his dismissal.

On Wednesday, Wolfgang Schäuble, the president of the Bundestag, appeared on national radio to defend Merkel’s decision in the summer of 2015 to allow nearly 1 million refugees into Germany – denying that it had been a mistake, and insisting that Germany had responded to an urgent humanitarian crisis by accepting refugees who needed help.

“But what we didn’t manage well enough was to prevent the impression the whole world was under: that now everyone, anywhere, who was living somewhere worse than Germany, could come. That’s what you always have to consider in politics, the impact of your communication,” he said.

US Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback has visited Ukraine. On Sept. 11 he was received by President Poroshenko. The ambassador seized the opportunity to offer assurances that Washington would continue to support the idea of an independent Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC), despite the fact that that institution is currently under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Moscow.

The UAOC has asked for a separation and to be granted autocephalous status, thus recognizing its ecclesiastical independence. Last April Ukrainian lawmakers reaffirmed Kiev’s traditional links to the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

On September 2, the Council of Bishops of the Church of Constantinople confirmed that the Constantinople Patriarchate, the first among equals in Orthodox Christianity, may grant autocephaly without obtaining prior approval. That council began the procedure to enable the Church of Ukraine to be recognized as autocephalous without delay.

Shortly after the confirmation, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew appointed two representatives as exarchs, or envoys, to prepare for the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. His position is clear and he did not hesitate to take this action that brings a declaration of ecclesiastical independence for the Church in Ukraine one step closer. Bishop Illarion and Bishop Daniel who were chosen for the mission are known for their anti-Russian views.

This is a flagrant violation of the canonical domain of the Moscow Patriarchy. The Greek Patriarchate did not even inform Moscow of the decision. A third of the Russian Orthodox Church’s 35,000 parishes are in Ukraine. Obviously this move will create an enormous schism in Orthodox Christianity, comparable to the rupture between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches in 1054 (the East-West schism). Some Orthodox Churches will recognize the independence of Ukraine’s Church, while others will reject it.

Actually, there will now be three Orthodox Churches in Ukraine: the Kiev Patriarchate, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church, and the Moscow Patriarchate, in addition to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which has many followers in the western part of the country. All of Ukraine will be divided along religious lines just to make it easier for the US to accomplish its goal of subjugating that nation through a “divide and rule’ policy.

The schism will not be limited just to Russia and Ukraine. If the decision to separate the Churches is implemented, the Russian Church may have no choice but to sever relations with Constantinople. The entire Greek Orthodox world would be divided.

The intentions of the Holy Synod of Constantinople are understandable. The Russian Orthodox Church is the biggest in the world. The Holy Synod has seized this opportunity to weaken its rival and to assert itself as the leader of the Orthodox world. Ambassador Brownback’s visit confirms the fact that the US wants this schism to take place. This is one way to weaken the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church among the Slavic nations and to create an alternative to it in Kiev, thus sidelining the Russian Church in the Orthodox world. Washington wants to see a rollback of Moscow on all fronts.

This is happening at a time when US policy is shifting in favor of expanding military assistance to Ukraine. US Special Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker confirmed this US commitment before his visit to Ukraine on Sept. 13. He arrived right after Mr. Brownback. Kiev is playing host to one US envoy after another. The very frequency of these visits is curious. Evidently something’s cooking.

All this is added to the US support of Ukraine at a time of heightened tensions, as the situation in the Azov Sea, a real tinderbox, keeps on deteriorating. Ukraine has just boosted its military presence there. Ukrainian Ground Forces Commander Colonel General Serhiy Popko brought this up on Sept. 11. Ukraine has a foreign military presence on its soil, as well as an official NATO status. The US is using Ukraine for its own economic and political ends. Ukrainian President Poroshenko has just tabled a bill to amend the constitution paving the way for NATO and EU membership. He wants it sealed and the parliament is to consider the amendments next week.

Washington is looking for ways to slow Russia’s growing strength, independence, and influence. A large country that is openly hostile to Moscow while sharing a long border with Russia fits that bill nicely. This policy will hardly help Ukraine become more prosperous or secure. Seizing each and every opportunity to emphasize its independence, Kiev is happily playing the role of a marionette being controlled by Washington.

Via Strategic Culture

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