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On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin rejected media reports that Russian security services were behind the poisoning of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, saying that if that were the case, Navalny would not have been alive.
Navalny, 44, became seriously ill during a flight from Siberia to Moscow last August, and was admitted to a hospital in the Russian city of Omsk before being flown to the German capital, Berlin, on a medical plane.
Experts from several Western countries concluded that the Kremlin’s most prominent opponent had been poisoned with “Novichok”, which developed in the Soviet era, a claim that Moscow has repeatedly denied.
A joint press report this week revealed what it claimed were the names and photos of chemical weapons experts from the Russian Federal Security Service who had been monitoring Navalny for years.
Speaking to journalists at his annual conference, Putin described the report as “legalization material issued by the US intelligence services”, adding that the opposition “has their support.”
The Russian president added that if Navalny is receiving support from US special intelligence; Russia, of course, should pursue it. “But this does not at all mean that he should be poisoned. Who needs it?”
Putin added: “If the Russian Federal Security Service wanted to poison Navalny, it would have accomplished the mission well.”
According to the joint report on Navalny, produced by the Bellingcat research site, agents of the Russian Federal Security Service have been monitoring the opposition on a regular basis, since 2017.
The site said it reached this conclusion based on the volume of data, including phone and travel records.
The joint report with the US network “CNN”, the German newspaper “Der Spiegel” and the Russian media outlet “The Insider” did not provide any direct contact between the alleged agents and Navalny.
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