Steve, 6:32 & 6:45 - cross-posting, as I'm sure you realise... Argh. I'm wanting to get out into the garden & plant things but... Oh alright...

A nuclear device is pretty simple to build, depending on what you want. An explosion? Little Boy was a simple gun. Modern nukes are far more complex & much, much harder to create, even though that tech is also relatively old. Plus, of course, you have to be able to acquire the necessary fissile materials. Dirty bomb? Just get a load of radioactive leftovers & pack them round a suitable amount of explosives. It's all very simple, tech-wise.

It's not ridiculous to suggest that Novichok is an exception. The tech, or rather chemistry, to produce poison gas is very much old hat. Nerve agents are only an extension of that. Again much of it, yes, is old hat. A competent chemist with a decently equipped lab could, I presume, produce them. Google Sarin & wiki will give you the chemical formula for it. After that, it's only a matter of working out what primary ingredients you need & how to construct the reaction chain...

Novichok is another matter; from wiki: "Russian scientists who developed the agents claim they are the deadliest nerve agents ever made, with some variants possibly five to eight times more potent than VX, and others up to ten times more potent than soman. They were designed as part of a Soviet program codenamed "FOLIANT". Five Novichok variants are believed to have been weaponised for military use. The most versatile was A-232 (Novichok-5)."

Note the "weaponised" - it's all very well to produce a doomsday weapon, but you don't want it going off in your own back yard, right? The first gas attacks were delivered from cylinders & were prone to being blown the wrong way by the wind. The first man-made nuclear explosion was a tower-mounted test device that couldn't have been deployed against an enemy.

Novichok agents may have been around for a long time. However, as above, they are claimed to the most poisonous agents known. What was used must have been "weaponised". Otherwise there would have been another twitching body beside the Skripals. So it's a subset of a military-level secret. Governments may indulge in skulduggery, but they don't release the information they gain. The West must know various chemical formulas that fall under the Novichok label, otherwise they would neither know what it was, nor be able to produce counter-measures (Porton Down has more or less admitted that it has).

It is neither reasoned nor reasonable to claim that because Novichok agents were originally created some 40+ years ago the process to manufacture them must therefore be available to non-state bodies or to individuals. You will happily resort to extreme pedantry in debate, Steve, so I have no hesitation in pulling you up on this. This is a shit argument, sir! States guard their secrets very, very carefully. Although the knowledge of Novichok chemistry is obviously not solely in the hands of the Russian govt, it is stupendously unlikely that it has escaped from the control of the states that have it. If it had, it would surely have been used ere now.

Someone attempted to murder Sergei Skripal. Whoever it was had to have a motive & the means to do it. Who knows who might have had a motive? But the only credible aggressor that had the means used & the will to apply the means in the careless & indiscriminate fashion that happened would appear to be Russia. That's logical analysis, not circumstantial evidence. Circumstantial evidence doesn't make a case; it can only add to it. The CE here is "We think Russia has done this sort of thing before". Without e.g. Litvinenko, we would still be pointing the finger at Russia, because Russia is the only credible would-be murderer.

And if it were me in the dock, no I wouldn't be stood there going "Of course it wasn't me, maybe it was you.." as Russia has done. I think I'd be going "Wow! Someone really wants to frame me for this... But sorry, Yer Honour, the evidence looks bad but it weren't me!"

And, for what it is worth, I have no feelings about Russia one way or t'other. Except that I think that Russia suffers under a fascist government not very different from Stalin's fascism*!

*Fascism is not a right wing thing; it's extreme authoritarianism. Consider that there is a N / S y axis to the commonly understood W / E x axis of left & right, when it comes to political ideology. The Nazis were fascists because they were authoritarian, not because they were extreme right wing (they weren't; they were more or less central overall). Marxism is not, doctrinally, authoritarian. But every real world occurrence (coz uz 'oomans iz stoopid) has been fascist. Fascism is about control; it's authoritarian. Stalin was a fascist, Hitler was a fascist, Putin is a fascist. Blessedly, it seems to be an idiosyncracy the UK is free of (however much anyone may loathe the Tories or Nigel Farceage!)