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The experts analyzed that there is no doubt that the attempted poisoning of the Russian anti-Putin man Alexei Navalni is an operation approved by the Russian government and high-ranking intelligence authorities.
Stephen Hall, the former US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in charge of Russian operations, said in an interview with US public radio NPR on the 3rd (local time), “There is no other way to explain this.”
Hall retired in 2015 after conducting CIA operations in Russia for more than 30 years.
“This is what the Russian intelligence authorities have been doing for decades,” he said. “It’s interesting that they still use” nobichok “.
He added: “But the attempt to assassinate a person like Navalni is not surprising at all,” he added. “It is quite surprising that it took so long to act against Navalni.”
The ‘Nobichok’ mentioned by Hall is a nerve agent developed by the former Soviet Union in the late Cold War era, and when exposed to the body, it interferes with communication between nerve cells, causing respiratory arrest, heart attack and organic damage.
Nobichok, who was recently discovered in Navalni’s nervous system, is also known to have been used in the attempted poisoning of former Russian double spy Sergei Scripal and his daughter Julia at a shopping center in Salisbury, England in 2018.
British police and two citizens at the time also showed signs of nobichok poisoning, with one of them dying, with the United States and the European Union (EU) pointing to the Russian Military Intelligence Agency (GRU) behind them.
“(Russia’s assassination attempts) have a long history,” Hall explained. “This is how Putin works, both inside and outside Russia.”
He said: “Attention is being paid to what kind of creative explanations the Kremlin will provide in this regard.” It can be, “he added.
Previously, Navalni fell on a plane from Tomsk, Siberia to Moscow on August 20 and was rushed to a hospital, but fell into a coma.
Navalni spokesperson Kira Yarmish said on Twitter that day: “It looks like someone has put poison in your car.”
Navalni is currently being transferred to Germany for treatment, but has not yet regained consciousness.
Meanwhile, the Russian side, suspected of being behind the assassination attempt, denied the suspicion that Navalni had been tested for toxic substances and found negative results.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “We have to be cautious in bringing charges against the Russian government,” he said. “I have no intention of accepting any charges.”
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