" Don't wait for the translation — yes or no!"

Russia will soon face a repeat of that October 1962 moment when then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson confronted the Soviet Union's ambassador with evidence of Soviet missile deployments in Cuba. This time, however, the proof of deception will be in relation to Russian President Vladimir Putin's denial of responsibility for the March nerve agent assassination attempt against a former British intelligence agent, Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia.

The new evidence comes in an unpredictable form. In the small town of Amesbury, two Britons were hospitalized last weekend and remain in a critical condition. It has since become clear that Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley are victims of the same Novichok-class nerve agent employed by Russian intelligence services in the Skripal attack.

British officials are convinced that Sturgess and Rowley were afflicted when they picked up an object in Salisbury, just south of Amesbury and the site where the Skripals were attacked. It is believed that the object was the Novichok weapon-mechanism used against the Skripals and that the Russian team which attacked the Skripals discarded the weapon where Sturgess and Rowley then found it. This would have allowed the Russians to evade searches by the police response teams that were on the scene in the immediate aftermath of the Skripals being found unconscious on a bench.

Why was the Russian strike team willing to risk innocent people being killed by their callous indifference? Simple. Because if it is plausibly deniable as here, endangering civilians is an acceptable tactic of the Russian services.

Still, while locating the item will assist in identifying those responsible for the Skripal attack, it will also very likely provide unmistakable evidence of Russian state culpability in that attack. That's because intelligence assessments on Russian nerve-agent delivery mechanisms are quite advanced and reflect both human and technical intelligence reporting. This will allow the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to review the object and corroborate their findings with international legitimacy.

Such a result will shine a light on Putin's global assassination campaign. That campaign has a distinct intent, capability, and methodology. Western governments know the campaign is real, but the Russians are content to pretend the campaign is fake news. If Putin's lies are exposed, it will be quite gratifying.

Of course, Putin will respond by denying any culpability with a new faux-fury. He will send out Russian " analysts" and " journalists" to attack the story, so as to encourage useful idiots to find truth and purpose in his wilderness of mirrors. But for international governments, the evidence will render more proof that Putin is an adversary who cannot be trusted.

Russia's strike team screwed up big time.