Should the UK Invoke Article 5 After Chemical Weapon Attack?

[Warning]

There are no by-products in neutron bombardment of 99.99% pure Bi-209 ingot.

And any that could theoretically appear from remaining impurities would say nothing about reactor after polonium separation

The problem is people saying it can be done and was done, when experts (which i linked) explicitly say that it wasn't done and it can't be done (at least as far as pure polonium-210 is concerned).

The poisoning was done by chemical attack, not polonium. Give up on the idiotic justifications and take your medicine. Your thug leader tested western patience for the umpteenth time and Russia is going to get a bat to the face for it this time, finally. This shit is long overdue and would be justified even if Russia had sprayed Skripal with chanel #5. If you ask me we should put down a few of the criminal oligarchs in putins inner circle, maybe he'll take a hint then.

[caervek]

The poisoning was done by chemical attack, not polonium.

They were discussing the Polonium poisoning of the spy in 2006.

[Warning]

They were discussing the Polonium poisoning of the spy in 2006.

I know, but the goal is distraction from the facts of what happened NOW.

[Mikah]

I'm arguing with wikipedia, but here we go...

Bullshit.

What do you mean by that? Different isotopes? Bi-208 will just absorb neutron and turn into stable Bi-209; the rest of isotopes is too short-lived to matter (and to be present in irradiated target).

Any other impurities can be separated at the moment of polonium extraction if necessary as they are unlikely to have same melting point.

That's where you are wrong. Replace 'any' with 'most'. No purification process is 100%.

Energy doesn't matter that much as long as produced neutrons can be absorbed. Amount of neutron flux matters on how fast sample can be produced - faster in specified reactor, slower but still possible in smaller ones.

Produced Polonium contains absolutely no indications of reactor used. Neutrons are neutrons regardless from source, and they are the only thing being transmitted from reactor to target in this process.

You assume two things that are false. First, that bombarding Bi-209 with neutrons will only produce Polonium-210, and second, that you can then purify that Polonium-210 to 100% purity.

Using different sources of neutrons with different energy, or for different length of time, will produce an array of different radioactive isotopes. Even if you only want polonium-210, you purification process will only be so much efficient, you will still have a bunch of detectable isotopes in your mixture. Those isotopes will differ between different reactors, because each of them will use a different process to generate the polonium. Hence the signature that will be unique to each reactor/process. And also why even slight variation in other variables from day to day will cause small differences in the array of isotopes that will be detected, allowing you to find differences between two batches.

No, any Bi-209 atom is in fact indistinguishable from any other Bi-209 atom. That's the entire basis of chemistry and nuclear physics.

I'm not saying they are different atoms, I'm saying the material used is different. That 99.99% Bi-209 from one place compared to the other has 0.01% of contaminants that are likely different. You think it is not significant. I'm saying with today's instruments, it is huge.

This analogy doesn't hold here.

It doesn't hold because you don't like it?

[caervek]

I know, but the goal is distraction from the facts of what happened NOW.

No they were just discussing it as it's relevant to the thread, if you're looking for the thread that's specifically for the recent poisoning of the spy in sailsbury it's here: https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...ian-spy/page15

[Warning]

No they were just discussing it as it's relevant to the thread, if you're looking for the thread that's specifically for the recent poisoning of the spy in sailsbury it's here: https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...ian-spy/page15

The title of this thread refers to a specific response to a chemical attack on the UK and the content of the first post indicates that the specific attack in question is the chemical attack on the UK that I'm talking about, and for which I suggest an alternative response than invocation of article 5, namely the targeting killing of inner circle members of putins criminal empire. So you're wrong, this is what the thread is about.

[Shalcker]

The poisoning was done by chemical attack, not polonium. Give up on the idiotic justifications and take your medicine. Your thug leader tested western patience for the umpteenth time and Russia is going to get a bat to the face for it this time, finally. This shit is long overdue and would be justified even if Russia had sprayed Skripal with chanel #5. If you ask me we should put down a few of the criminal oligarchs in putins inner circle, maybe he'll take a hint then.

Propaganda in action.

Remember how Litvinenko case took 6 months before Lugovoi was charged? Now you do it in six days, and guilty party is already established with noone seeing any evidence but UK!

And if you think anyone will weep for any of oligarchs in Russia, you're mistaken. The most sad part is that you aren't actually going to do anything about them.

And with time compression like that i guess at some point soon enough US aircraft gets shot down and next minute nukes already fly.

[Warning]

Propaganda in action.

Remember how Litvinenko case took 6 months before Lugovoi was charged? Now you do it in six days, and guilty party is already established with noone seeing any evidence but UK!

And if you think anyone will weep for any of oligarchs in Russia, you're mistaken. The most sad part is that you aren't actually going to do anything about them.

And with time compression like that i guess at some point soon enough US aircraft gets shot down and next minute nukes already fly.

Change course and you'll avoid the consequences that you seem to dislike so much. Russia's recent actions have no place in the modern world, they merit a response. Spend your energy to change the ways of your country. You've written 100s of posts on an English forum trying to justify a highly illegal act committed by your country. Get out into the streets of Moscow and start handing out flyers demanding that the government remove its forces from Crimea and Donbass, recognize the pre-conflict borders and cease acts of violence on the territory of sovereign states instead of trying to repeatedly explain to us why vicious crimes shouldn't be punished.

[Gaaz]

With the case of Litvinenko's polonium things are much simpler and you are debating something that is irrelevant as if it was super-important. Yes, there was no tracing to the reactor (and maybe you are even right that such tracing would have been impossible to do under the circumstances or even in general, although I think that with a lot of material it should have been possible one way or another), but nobody was producing polonium in requisite amounts except a single Russian plant. That single Russian plant was producing the vast majority of it, was the only plant that was known to do it regularly and was the main source of polonium for everyone interested. That's it.

I *agree* that this is not enough to say 100% that polonium was from there, but it was enough to say it with 95% certainty and that's where things ended. Now, if you are going to argue that 95% is not 100%, then sure, it isn't, but it is 95% with polonium, 95% with this, 99% with that, 99.999% with some other thing, maybe 95% here with Novichok, so if you want to keep saying that nothing short of 100% would do, be my guest but nobody is going to buy it and they would be right not to buy it. It is too easy to make something not 100%, nothing is ever 100% in practice.

I should probably tell you that this assumption was dropped by British court, since it was proven by an example that you can purchase lethal amounts of polonium-210 online with no problems. The example they used was a fan made in the US, which contained a lethal dose of polonium-210, enough to kill about 10 people. Also:

Polonium-210, the radioactive isotope fingered as the substance used to off exiled Russian KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko, is available to buy online for just $69 plus shipping and handling.

New Mexico firm United Nuclear Scientific Equipment & Supplies offers a sample of radioactive element on its website, as part of its aim of putting the "fun back into science".
The BBC told us yesterday: "The radioactive substance implicated is as difficult to obtain as it can be to detect." Hmm. United Nuclear don't do international shipping, but we reckon a determined assassin might find a way round that.

Since retreating to The Register's central London anti-nuclear bunker in blind panic when the poisoning story broke, we could have sworn we've been told by sections of the media the use of polonium-210 meant the assassination must have been sanctioned from the top. The only possibility was for Vladimir Putin having handed out vials of the stuff to an elite force of brilliant but disfigured hitmen in a disused provincial Soviet nuclear power station, we were led to believe.

In fact, according to the vendor, polonium-210 is the only alpha particle emittor available without a licence.

[Deleted]

Looks like the French are now going to take action against Russia for its attack. Macron said that France will start planning what actions to take.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-br...KCN1GR13O?il=0

[Shadowmelded]

Unfortunately not, we just figured out what it was and assumed the rest. This is why many of our own politicians are so skeptical of fully committing to getting tough with Russia, because our case is based entirely on circumstantial evidence. And after the Iraq debacle they know the public aren't fans of taking action without real evidence.

From what I've read, it seems like they do know not only what it was but origin and age etc... The skepticism from people (which is justified) is whether it was an order from the top or they lost control of it. May keeps leaving the latter possibility open which is why Corbyn is reluctant to commit.

[Shalcker]

You assume two things that are false. First, that bombarding Bi-209 with neutrons will only produce Polonium-210, and second, that you can then purify that Polonium-210 to 100% purity.

Bullshit on both counts.

Using different sources of neutrons with different energy, or for different length of time, will produce an array of different radioactive isotopes.

That's not how it works. Elements move up on atomic weight as they capture neutrons (Bi-209 to Bi-210 in this case); then if resulting element is unstable it might decay (in this case it's beta-minus decay so it has neutron turn into proton and shifts from Bi-210 to Po-210 while releasing other particles). There are specific paths elements follow - there is no "array of isotopes" if there is no "array of elements" in irradiated sample and no other unstable elements in decay chain (and Po-210 decays into "observationally stable" Lb-206).

That specificity is why nuclear weapons and nuclear energy can work at all.

Even if you only want polonium-210, you purification process will only be so much efficient, you will still have a bunch of detectable isotopes in your mixture.

Wiki on Polonium:
"210Po (in common with 238Pu) has the ability to become airborne with ease: if a sample is heated in air to 55 °C (131 °F), 50% of it is vaporized in 45 hours to form diatomic Po2 molecules, even though the melting point of polonium is 254 °C (489 °F) and its boiling point is 962 °C (1,764 °F).[12][13][1]"
Bismuth:
"Melting point 544.7 K ​(271.5 °C, ​520.7 °F) Boiling point 1837 K ​(1564 °C, ​2847 °F)"

No, you wouldn't really have "bunch of detectable isotopes" here as most "unwanted" stuff will remain in metallic form while polonium "flies away", and entire thing has just three isotopes you would be able to observe after sample is removed from reactor.

Those isotopes will differ between different reactors, because each of them will use a different process to generate the polonium. Hence the signature that will be unique to each reactor/process. And also why even slight variation in other variables from day to day will cause small differences in the array of isotopes that will be detected, allowing you to find differences between two batches.

There are other decay chains (like U-238 natural decay chain) that also produce polonium-210, and sure, those could actually have plenty of other things around, but they are not feasible to produce quantities observed in Litvinenko case at all. Separation would be several orders of magnitude more complex, and you would have to process a lot of material (literally tons) - and you wouldn't even need a reactor.

For Bi-209 ingot irradiation, you will not have anything "unique to reactor". Neutrons are neutrons no matter the source.

I'm not saying they are different atoms, I'm saying the material used is different. That 99.99% Bi-209 from one place compared to the other has 0.01% of contaminants that are likely different. You think it is not significant. I'm saying with today's instruments, it is huge.

Okay, how many atoms from remaining impurities you would expect to see after polonium is gathered through sublimation?

Wouldn't most of them stay trapped in bismuth?

[Dug]

From what I've read, it seems like they do know not only what it was but origin and age etc... The skepticism from people (which is justified) is whether it was an order from the top or they lost control of it. May keeps leaving the latter possibility open which is why Corbyn is reluctant to commit.

Either way consequences should be faced imo

[Shalcker]

Change course and you'll avoid the consequences that you seem to dislike so much.

I think nuclear war is inevitable exactly because noone is changing course. Perhaps it's sad, but no, so far we aren't going to "blink first" here.

Russia's recent actions have no place in the modern world, they merit a response.

Yeah, i see propaganda in overdrive on both sides; that's one possibility for "response", sure.

Spend your energy to change the ways of your country. You've written 100s of posts on an English forum trying to justify a highly illegal act committed by your country.

Trying to ask for following proper standards of evidence and international law/treaties rather then emotional-driven "We have to do something! Now!!!"

...because that's sure way for nukes to fly at some point.
..and those nukes do fly, we made sure of that above anything else.

Get out into the streets of Moscow and start handing out flyers demanding that the government remove its forces from Crimea and Donbass, recognize the pre-conflict borders and cease acts of violence on the territory of sovereign states instead of trying to repeatedly explain to us why vicious crimes shouldn't be punished.

Yeah, how about no?

Tell me, what are you going to do if May claims are wrong?

[Shadowmelded]

Either way consequences should be faced imo

Oh yeah. Even if it wasn't sanctioned by Putin, if he's lost control of elements within the Kremlin that have access to extremely dangerous materials they're still a danger.

[Kreo]

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/05/25/wo....html?referer=

Also main guy who invented that Novichok immigrated to US long time ago.
But Putin is mad and totally want more sanctions, isolation, boycotting of the soccer in 2018 and asset seizures of his close friends.
All worth in the end, when that old and used up, even to UK, wakes up frrom a coma and will tell:" I was Putin!"

[Deleted]

We got proof!

[Deleted]

I think its funny that Putin, and Russians in generel keep doing bad things, and figure no one cares, or that they are smarter than everyone else.

I am all for Russian joining the global community and actually being friendly... but this mentality needs to change.

In the global community there are agreed upon standards, like providing PROOF.

How about you try that for a change?

[Shalcker]

I think its funny that Putin, and Russians in generel keep doing bad things, and figure no one cares, or that they are smarter than everyone else.

I am all for Russian joining the global community and actually being friendly... but this mentality needs to change.

Joining community that ignores their IPCW commitments and international obligations to sling blame?

And invades countries on false pretexts?

Aren't we already part of that club?

[Shalcker]

Again... Russia loves plausible deniability... as do most other nations... if proof was found, Russia would have a really horrible spy agency...

Look, if we say tomorrow that UK activated plot to assassinate Putin on his victory speech as "response" and jail bunch of people for that and expel UK ambassador, would you believe that to be true?

Obviously all evidence presented would be Russian...

Why do you expect us to react like UK claims are true? Based just on UK assertions?