As Close as We'll Get to a "Smoking Gun" in the Skripal Poisoning

The long and short of it -- for an excellent compendium see Niqnaq's "skripal and BZ agent" -- is that the Skripals were poisoned by BZ, a toxic nerve agent which temporarily disables a person. The sample sent to the OPCW was spiked with A-234 (what has been referred to by the British as "Novichok") in "its virgin state."

Lavrov's question to the OPCW is why there was no mention of BZ in its final report:

Taking into account that Yulia Skripal and the policeman have already been released from hospital, whereas Sergei Skripal is still recovering, as the British claim without letting us see either Yulia or Sergei, the clinical pattern corresponds more to the use of a BZ agent. Nothing is said whatsoever about a BZ agent in the final report that the OPCW experts presented to its Executive Council. In this connection we address the OPCW a question about why the information that I have just read out loud, and which reflects the findings of the specialists from the city of Spiez, was withheld altogether in the final document. If the OPCW would reject and deny the very fact that the Spiez laboratory was engaged, it will be very interesting to listen to their explanations.

A-234 apparently degrades very quickly. To find it in its "virgin state" weeks after the event is highly suspicious; it would have killed the Skripals instantaneously. An obvious conclusion is that A-234 was added in haste to the BZ that poisoned the Skripals to fit the original story concocted by the British government.

Reuters ran a turgid version of the story. So far there is nothing in the "newspaper of record." It is too busy celebrating Trump's blowing up of fictitious chemical weapons labs in Syria.