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An investigation by various media outlets last week held eight FSB agents responsible for the poison attack on Alexej Navalny. Now the Kremlin critic is stepping up: in a telephone conversation, one of the men is said to have confessed to the crime.
According to Kremlin critic Alexej Navalny, an agent of the Russian national secret service FSB is said to have admitted to the poison attack on him. Titled “I called my killer. He confessed,” Navalny posted on YouTube a recording of a phone call with the alleged FSB agent.
The phone call is said to have taken place a few hours before the publication of an investigation by various international media outlets, including “Spiegel”, which blames at least eight Russian secret service agents for the poison attack on the opposition. Navalny had collapsed on a domestic flight in August.
Poison inside pants
Navalny called several of those allegedly involved in the attack and pretended to be an assistant to the head of Russia’s Security Council to gain their trust. The phone number was suppressed with the help of a special program and replaced by another, said to have been used by men in contact with each other.
Almost all of the callers have hung up, except for one Navalny claims to have identified as the FSB agent, Kudryavzew. The man said in the now published phone call that the poison was attached to the inside seams of the underwear. Navalny only survived the attack because the pilot made an emergency landing too fast. The plane landed in the Siberian city of Omsk. Navalny was first taken to a hospital there and then flown to the Charité in Berlin. Kudryavtsev said he had traveled to Omsk with another FSB agent to collect Navalny’s clothes and remove traces of the poison.
“One of the most intimate objects”
According to three European laboratories, the results of which have been confirmed by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Navalny was poisoned with a chemical nerve agent from the Novichok group. As reported by the Russian portal “Meduza”, one of the Soviet developers of the poison, Vladimir Ugljow, had already suggested in September that the poison could have adhered to Navalny’s underwear. “Underwear is one of the most intimate objects of a person, nobody, except the owner, usually touches them. This prevents outsiders from being harmed, ”Ugljow said.
Russia had repeatedly denied allegations that it did nothing to resolve the case and requested evidence. At his big annual press conference, Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin admitted that Navalny was being watched by the secret service. The president had emphasized that there was no reason to poison his fiercest opponent. “If you had wanted that, you would have finished it.”
