January 15, 2018
Last Monday, Jan.
8, a car was found set alight on the British crown territory of Guernsey.
Skeletal remains
since found in the driving seat are believed to be those of its owner, Mikus
Alps, a Latvian who had fought with pro-Ukrainian volunteers against Russia's
incursion into south-eastern Ukraine.
A small island in
the English channel, Guernsey is normally a quiet, peaceful place. But
according to Mikus Alps' volunteer friends, he had suffered escalating threats
in recent months. In addition, according to Ukrainian press reports, Alps was
providing cars to Ukrainian forces fighting the Russian-aligned rebels.
This establishes
the motive for a Russian assassination: the Russian intelligence services work
persistently to coerce individuals against opposing Putin's interests in
Ukraine. While most of this activity is carried through via threat, it also takes
the form of
assassinations in Ukraine.
But it is the
attack itself which offers the strongest evidence of Russian culpability.
First off,
consider the photo — released by Guernsey police — of the burned out wreckage.
The degree of
damage here and the limited skeletal remains found suggest that the fire was
extremely intense. This suggests the involvement of trained killers rather than
simple thugs. More importantly, however, the skeletal remains were found in the
driving seat. And that reeks of Russian intelligence's particular fetish for
what might be called their pageantry of death. Rather than simply eliminating a
target, the Russians like to send aggressive
messages as they do so.
Conversely, had
thugs or otherwise criminally motivated individuals been responsible for this
act, they would more likely have thrown the victim into the back seat for simple
reasons of ease. The driver seat position of the skeleton is thus significant.
In a small mercy, it seems that the victim was dead before the car was set
alight: a Guernsey government spokesman told the Washington Examiner
that there is no evidence that the victim had been bound to the steering wheel.
Of course, the
operative point is that Mr. Alps was delivering cars for the Ukrainian
volunteers and that the skeleton was found in his driving seat. This suggests
the killers intended to draw a very specific connection point between his
activities with regards to Ukraine and his apparent death in Guernsey. Here, it
is notable that the Guernsey government says a "Home Office"
pathologist will examine the skeletal remains. In situations like this,
"Home Office" should be regarded as a code word for Britain's
domestic intelligence service, MI5.
There's one final
point here: context.
As I've noted, the British
government recently pledged to crack down on Russian intelligence operations in
the U.K. This represents a significant challenge to the relative ease with which Russian
intelligence officers, agents, and interests have pursued their ambitions in
Britain in recent years. This killing might be a Russian message to London:
"We are undeterred."
If so, this is
also a warning for us: as the U.S. now provides military arms to Ukraine, we
must be aware that unless deterred, Russia will escalate against our interests.
Tom Rogan
