The wonderful thing about Russians is that Russians are wonderful things. Sorry, that was ‘tiggers’ but I’m sure Pooh Bear will forgive for me borrowing his phrase. Because Russians are wonderful, never think otherwise. They drug their entire athletics team, orders coming right from the Kremlin, which has its own doping department, an under-secretary for performance enhancement and a pharmacy. They send agents to Salisbury to murder enemies of the state with chemical weapons. They hack the entire planet, from American elections to Brexit votes. Their Ministry of Hacking is now the biggest building in Moscow. Certainly with the most aerials. And the most nerds.

But all the espionage, the subterfuge, the cheating, the murders and other dastardly deeds are nothing compared to the Russia’s biggest agency of all. The Department for Denial. You’d think it would be just one man. Sergei. Who sits there with a rubber stamp which says (backwards, obviously, cos its a stamp, and probably in Russian): DAT IS A LIE!!!!! He has others which say ‘WE DID NOT DO DAT!’ and another, using google translate after they borrowed it from Trump: ‘FAKE NEWS!!’

But in fact those Russians have elevated the previously innocuous art of denial to levels never before plumbed. Maybe that should be ‘depths’. Whatever. And written across the gateway to the Agency for Denial is the legend: WE KNOW NO SHAME.

Because quite frankly, its become an embarrassment. You can say that two murderous spies were ‘just tourists’ all you want, however laughable it appears, but when they turn out to be ex-high ranking military, now presumed KGB (you can change the acronym all you like, the intention and the methodology remain constant. NKVD, GRU, yeah, really), those denials get a bit limp. But still continue.

So now we have the Fab Four. They went to Amsterdam just after the Skripal ‘event’ and hacked into the Office for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons by using a rented car stuffed with hacking shit. All manner of cloak-and-daggery were in there, of the modern, cyber variety. All four are KGB, all travelling on sequential diplomatic passports and all caught totally red-handed (what other colour could it be?) in mid-hack, with all 12 phones (12?) and lap-tops and equipment packed with incriminating shit, what can Russia do?

Deny. That’s what it can do. Accuse the world of being ‘spy-obsessed’ and feed their own population its usual state-controlled pack of lies.

Putin, himself ex-KGB (isn’t everyone?), will be really embarrassed by this. Not for the ‘mea culpa’ effect but for the sheer incompetence of the exponents. If the Fab Four aren’t already dead, their futures look bleak.

Another interesting question is why we’re only just hearing about this now, when the arrests were made 6 months ago. Hmmm…

Your in denial

A xxxx