András Németh

Although the Russian authorities launched a preliminary investigation into the details of the incident a week after the poisoning of the best-known Russian opponent, Alexei Navalny, there are still more questions than answers to the case, which is reminiscent of an assassination attempt by several opposition figures Russian. President Putin again had a bad sentence, and the Germans officially announced that they were trying to kill the well-known blogger with the neurotoxin that was also used by the perpetrators of the 2018 Scripal assassination in England.

Already immediately after the August 20 poisoning, suspicious events occurred, the strangest of which was that while the 44-year-old opposition blogger who created the Anti-Corruption Fund was immediately transferred to the toxicology department of the largest hospital in Omsk, They gave him atropine. – The official final report two days later indicated that the symptoms of Alexei Navalny, who had been ill and on a plane from Tomsk to Moscow, were caused by an emergency drop in blood sugar levels and had not been found toxins or hallucinogens in the patient’s body. Omsk doctors stuck to their version for a long time despite the fact that after Navalniy was transferred to the Charité Hospital in Berlin, confirmed in several on-site laboratories, they tried to kill Navalny with neurotoxin. Now it has been revealed that a drug called Novicsok, or a very similar compound, was also used against the politician critical of Putin in the 2018 assassination of Scripal in Salisbury, England.

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Hospital short circuit

It is also noteworthy that for two days the leaders of the Omsk hospital did not allow Navalny to fly to Berlin despite the fact that the German doctors who arrived at the scene said that the opposition blogger was in transportable condition and the Berliners took responsibility. to relocate Navalny. Finally, Omsk’s yes came, according to Navalny’s staff and family, when much of the poison had already been removed from the patient’s body, and Navalny could be flown to Germany. While his tug of war was going on in the Omsk neighborhood, people from almost all the Russian armed forces appeared: policemen, members of the National Guard and agents of the Federal Security Service (FSB), who for a long time did not allow the wife de Navalny met with members of the German medical team. .

While doctors at the hospital said there was no poison in Navalny’s body, a police spokesman reported for some time that traces of hallucinogenic substances had been found in the blogger’s urine, presumably to suggest that Navalny was boarding the plane. and the authorities withdrew this. version and the official announcement of the doctors was accepted. However, it was only late, a week after the poisoning, that investigations began, and official reports say the action taken under international pressure only mentions a “preliminary investigation.” According to Navalny staff, the poison was smuggled into tea consumed at Tomsk airport, and experts also emphasize that this neurotoxin is not a substance that can only be consumed by accident.

Poisoning – cruel but effective

While many say that it is much easier to shoot someone in the back than to arrange poisoning and make sure only the selected person receives the drug, there are elements of poisoning that are good for offenders as well. For example, the killer has a long time to escape until the poison begins to take effect, or as in the case of Navalny, the plane makes a crash landing in a distant city. Novics poison is also good because it is undetectable in traditional laboratories: a few years ago a Bulgarian businessman could have obtained it, but local experts to this day cannot say what poison was obtained by Jemilian Gebrev, who also deals with the sale of weapons.

After twenty years, Russian President Vladimir Putin has again made a statement of utter callousness. While in 2000, when the Kursk nuclear submarine exploded and all 118 sailors and soldiers were lost at sea, Putin – with a few smiles on the edge of his mouth – answered questions about the fate of the pride of the fleet, “well sunk” . Now, when asked about the best-known opposition, Putin said: Navalny was “sick.”

The statement also suggests that Russia expert Mark Galeotti is probably right, saying the poisoning of the opposition leader also surprised the Kremlin. “The case probably also unexpectedly affected Russian state leaders, and even from the hasty responses, it appears that the murder was not invented and organized in the center. An influential Russian is likely to be in the background, but not necessarily the state, ”Galeotti told the BBCto.

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Long-term consequences

Navalny is currently in an artificial coma at the Charité Hospital, and although his doctors say his life is no longer in danger, the long-term consequences of the murder cannot yet be predicted. Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian opponent now living in the US, reported that after he too was a victim of poisoning, the recovery took months and he had to learn to walk again. Vil Mirzajanov, who was previously involved in the development of Soviet-made Novics, said the poison is causing severe and long-lasting destruction to the nervous system, and therefore full recovery is conceivable to take years.



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