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Putin rejected reports that Russia’s security services were behind the poisoning of Alexei Navalny.
Moscow, Russia:
President Vladimir Putin on Thursday rejected reports that Russia’s security services were behind the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, saying that if they were, the opposition leader would not be alive.
Navalny, 44, fell seriously ill during a flight from Siberia to Moscow in August and was hospitalized in the Russian city of Omsk before being transported to Berlin on a medical plane.
Experts from several Western countries concluded that the Kremlin critic was poisoned with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok, a claim that Moscow has repeatedly denied.
A joint press report this week revealed what it said were the names and photos of chemical weapons experts from the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) who had followed Navalny for years.
Speaking to reporters at his annual end-of-year press conference, Putin described the report as “the legalization of US special services materials,” adding that the Kremlin critic “has your support.”
The Russian leader said that if Navalny had the support of US special services, Russia of course should follow suit.
“But this does not at all mean that it is necessary to poison him. Who needs it?” Putin said.
If the Russian special services had wanted to poison Navalny, “they would have carried him to the end,” he said.
The joint report on Navalny run by the investigative website Bellingcat said that FSB agents had followed the opposition leader on a regular basis since 2017.
Bellingcat said it had reached the conclusion based on volumes of data, including phone records and travel records.
The joint report with CNN, Der Spiegel and the Russian outlet The Insider did not establish any direct contact between the 44-year-old opposition leader and the named agents.
In response to the poisoning, the European Union imposed entry bans and froze the bank accounts of six people suspected of being responsible, including the head of the FSB, Alexander Bortnikov.
Navalny has said that he will return to Russia once he has fully recovered in Germany.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
