What he was told was a debriefing, Konstantin Kudryavtsev also talked about others involved in the poisoning in the Siberian city of Tomsk, and how he was sent to clean things up.
But the agent was not talking to an official of Russia’s National Security Council as much as he thought. He himself was talking to Naval, who almost died after being poisoned in August.
Naval has long been a thorn in the side of President Vladimir Putin, who has exposed corruption in high places and campaigned against the ruling United Russia party.
The Bellingcat-CNN investigation found that an FSB poisoning team of about six to 10 agents had kept Navalny behind for more than three years. After identifying most of the team, CNN and Bellingcat tried to contact him and his superiors.
A man named Oleg Tayakin, interrogated by CNN, locked the door. Others did not respond.
At the same time, Naval was also making calls. To begin with, he told agents who he was, and those who contacted him immediately finished. For the final call to Kudryavatsev, his team decided on a different approach: a sting operation.
How Navalny did it
Navalny, who is still recovering in a secret location in Germany, has been tasked with analyzing the poisoning operation as a senior official of Russia’s National Security Council. His phone number was disguised as FSB headquarters, according to Navalny’s team and a recording of a call provided to CNN and Belling.
After Kudryavtsev confirmed his identity, Navalny said he would be given a “brief understanding of the team members: what went wrong, why did Tomsk fail completely with Navalny?”
Kudryavatsev’s answers in the 45-minute call provide the first direct evidence of the unit’s involvement in the poisoning.
At times he is clearly afraid to speak on an unsafe line but Naval, often speaking arrogantly and hastily, will explain to him that senior officials are demanding an immediate report and say that “all these matters will be discussed in the Security Council.” The highest level. ”
Why underwear was targeted
Most dramatically Kudryavatsev provided detailed information on how the nerve agent was applied to a pair of Navalni panties.
Navalny asked: “What is the emphasis on clothing? What is the most dangerous part of clothing?”
Kudryavatsev gave a simple answer: “Underpaints.”
Navalni asked exactly which novichok is applied – inside or outside seam.
“Inside, Krutch,” replied Kudryavtsev.
Toxicologists consulted by CNN say that if applied in granular form to clothing, the victim is absorbed through the novice skin when it begins to sweat.
Investigations by BellingCut and CNN used thousands of phone records plus flight manifests and other documents obtained by Belling to track a team of toxic experts. He established that, at night Novichok somehow went to Navalny’s hotel room, there came a ping from a cell phone of a few hundred yards from the hotel of a poisonous team, Alexei Alexandrov.
Kudryavtsev admitted to knowing Alexandrov and praised his work.
Unexpected result
CNN cannot confirm that Kudryavtsev was also in Tomsk when the poison was used. But the call showed that he had an intimate knowledge of what had happened and was involved in the clean-up operation to make sure there were no traces of Novichok left after Navalny left the hospital.
Naval suddenly fell ill on a flight home from Moscow and the pilot turned to Omsk, where he received paramedics for life-saving emergency treatment.
If the plane had flown over Moscow, Naval would have almost died, according to toxicology experts consulted by CNN.
“The flight is about three hours, this is a long flight,” Kudryavtsev said. “The effect would have been different and the outcome would have been different if you hadn’t landed the plane. So I think the plane played a crucial part.”
“[We] Didn’t expect all this to happen. “I’m sure everything went wrong,” Kudryavtsev added – suggesting that the FSB’s intention was to kill Navalny, as many toxic scientists familiar with Novichok have said.
When asked if the wrong amount of poison could be given, Kudryavatsev responded: “As far as I understand it, we added [a] A bit extra. “
Cleaning work
Kudryavatsev’s background suggests that he specializes in chemical and biological weapons. He graduated from the Moscow branch of the Russian Academy of Chemical Defense. Bellingcat has established that he later worked at the 42nd Center of the Ministry of Defense – its Biosecurity Research Center.
The Bellingkat-CNN investigation, which also involved the German magazine Der Spiegel and the Russian publication online publication The Insider, had already established by flight manifestos that Kudryavatsev had gone to Omsk on 25 August, five days after the poisoning.
“When we arrived, they gave them to us, brought in local Omsk guys [them] With the police, “Kudryavatsev said on a call. He added that they have implemented solutions so that no marks are left on the clothes.
“So no surprises with clothes?” Asked Navalni.
“That’s why we went there so often,” Kudryavtsev replied.
Later, Kudryavatsev says, “I was asked to do certain work with the inner, underpants.”
Navalni asked: “Who said that? Makshakov?”
“Yes,” replied Kudryavtsev.
Stanislav Makshkov is a scientist identified in the investigation as an officer of the toxic team, based on the FSB’s criminal unit on the outskirts of Moscow. Prior to this he served as a colonel in the Soviet and later Russian research institute Sikh Institute on Chemical Weapons.
The investigation, published last week, established details of the poison team’s communications and travels, showing that they had been shadowing Navalny on more than 30 trips outside Moscow since 2017. The data also revealed high-level contacts between experts in conducting research between the poison unit and laboratories in Russia. Nerve agents.
Putin and other Russian officials have rejected the Belling-CNN probe as part of a campaign run by Western intelligence agencies. On Friday, Putin said he was presenting a kind of “information war” – describing the investigation as “a dump where everything is being dumped, dumped in the hope that it will make an impression on civilians, politically.” Will show distrust of leadership. ”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov acknowledged the surveillance operation on the novel – because he said – “growing ‘ears’ of foreign special services.”
What Agents and Navalny Saw
Navalny told CNN on Monday that he did not believe the new revelations would lead to an investigation in Russia. “It simply came to our notice then that Putin was personally behind this,” he said.
He added that he was stunned by talking to Kudryavatsev. “I was definitely stunned and couldn’t believe it,” he said. “Simultaneously because of my luck and the way he regularly says ‘the work was done right.’ He doesn’t explicitly consider himself a member of the murder team, just an ordinary employee. “
In an almost surreal moment on the call, Navalni confesses to Kudryavatsev that he has survived.
He went on to say: “You’ve been on a lot of trips with Navalny – Kirov in 2017 – how would you rate his personality?”
“Be very careful, afraid of everything – on the one hand,” replied Kudryavtsev. “But on the other hand – he goes everywhere and this way. The room changes, he cares so much about it.”
He was then asked if Navalny would have recognized any toxic team.
“It’s unlikely, we’re very strict about it, changing clothes and all,” he said, adding that the team took different flights when following Navalny in Russia.
Kudryavatsev seems to be proud of the team’s security measures. “No one filmed, no one else saw, this is always excluded.”
He was almost certainly right in that respect. Navalny told CNN that he did not recognize Kudryavatsev or other members of the team earlier this month when he was shown photographs. But the investigation has shown that the FSB poisoning team of the criminal organization has left evidence of their movements, communications and activities.
Among those evidences was Kudryavtsev’s cell phone number – by which he inadvertently allowed Bellingcat and CNN to complete a picture of Navalny’s poison by the Russian state.
CNN has reached out to Kudryavtsev and the Kremlin for comment.
CNN’s Anna Chernova, Mary Ilyushina and Daria Tarasova contributed to the story.
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