Contraptions for those "nice, peaceful" Syrians
Grotesque and bizarre are the rumours swirling around the disappeared and re-appeared Arctic Sea. There's the official Russian version of events, which no one believes, and then there's the view of Yulia Latynina, a leading opposition journalist: "The Arctic Sea was carrying something, not timber and not from Finland, that necessitated some major work on the ship," she wrote on Wednesday in the Moscow Times.
During two weeks of repair works in the Russian port of Kaliningrad just before the voyage, the ship's bulkhead was dismantled so something very large could be loaded, she wrote. "To put it plainly: The Arctic Sea was carrying some sort of anti-aircraft or nuclear contraption intended for a nice, peaceful country like Syria, and they were caught with it," she said.
The Assad gang have been caught before at this kind of thing. Whatever else the Syrians are, they are not peaceful, they are not nice and they most certainly are not our friends.
