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And when he still delivered it at the urging of an American journalist at a private event in 2013, it became sensational news, writes The New York Times.
His name was mentioned on the Kremlin’s website just a couple of weeks ago, and in this way he acknowledged that Putin’s most ruthless critic did exist.
“It just came to our knowledge then. It’s sacred, mystical,” said Dmitry Belousov, a former screenwriter for Russian state television who has been writing scripts that have damaged the reputation of the Kremlin’s enemies for many years.
Fearing arrest, he fled Russia last year and is currently seeking political asylum in the Netherlands, the article says.
According to Belousov, his television work, commissioned by Kremlin officials and based on compromising surveillance footage provided by the security services, included a former Moscow mayor seen as a potential rival of Putin and oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who lives in voluntary exile. .
However, the biggest attack was against A. Navalnas, writes The New York Times.
“They really hate Navaln,” Belousov said. Because “they have absolutely no control over what he did. The Kremlin fights against any force it cannot control, with any opinion that it does not control. That is their main strategy. “
Another reason for the outrage, he said, was that despite years of hunting, the security services had failed to remove any compromising material on him.
German doctors believe that A. Navalnas was poisoned. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed allegations as “vacuum noise” and said Russia saw no reason to launch an investigation into what had happened to the “patient.”
It is a new nickname recently attached to “gentleman,” “the character you mentioned,” “the accused,” and other terms the Kremlin uses to avoid mentioning Navaln’s name, the newspaper said.
Navaln’s poisoning of the Novičiok group of nerve stun agents, as confirmed by the Armed Forces Laboratory of Pharmacy and Toxicology, has forced the Kremlin to speak up more frequently and propose new euphemisms to avoid mentioning the unofficially prohibited opposition.
Putin’s spokesman, Mr. Peskov, had to answer a few days ago why he continues to work fiercely to avoid directly mentioning Navalna, and continues to use the blanket words “patient”, “Russian citizen”, “patient”.
“He’s a patient, he’s sick, that’s what we call him,” Peskov used to reply.
During a new conversation with journalists, he used a new euphemism, “The patient in Berlin.”
Peskov recalled his own words that in order to initiate an investigation in Russia into what had happened to Mr. Navaln, it was necessary to identify the specific substance with which he had been poisoned.
Clinic where Alexei Navaln is treated
“The timing of the poisoning following massive protests in neighboring Belarus over disputed presidential elections and weeks of demonstrations in Russia’s Far East has sparked a number of rumors. Why, after many years of attacks on Navaln’s reputation and at least two attacks on his person, the threats have suddenly turned into something akin to an assassination attempt? – The publication is considering. “According to a popular theory, the Kremlin, intimidated by the protests in western Belarus and the east of Khabarovsk, he wanted to get Navalna out of the way so that he could not mobilize dissatisfaction closer to Putin and undermine his plans for next year’s parliamentary elections. “
The alternative theory says that Navaln’s poisoning reflects not the relentless effectiveness of a system of law enforcement, but the weakness of a system whose response to potential threats has deteriorated so much that the state no longer functions as a unit, but rather as a mixture. of competing clans and independent fighters like Yevgeny Prigozhin. holding anger.
“Each element of the system operates according to its own logic and does not pursue the interests of the system,” says the political analysis firm R. Politika. “It is founded by Tatiana Stanovaya. – Poisoning is not the most effective way to fight an opponent. It’s complete idiocy. “
The confusion was exacerbated by the fact that, unlike other victims of Russia’s terrible poisoning, Navaln was never seen as a traitor, a category of enemies that Putin despised and that, according to him, deserved no mercy. writes The New York Times, remembering Alexander Litvinenko and Sergei Skripalis.
However, the dividing line between betrayal in the service of a foreign state and internal opposition has become less clear lately.
“All national politics are now seen as a reflection of foreign threats,” said Jekaterina Šulman, a political scientist and former member of the Kremlin’s Human Rights Council, who was removed from the council last year through the purge of independent members.
“This perception is not entirely new, but it has reached unprecedented proportions in recent years. “The idea that everything in the world is a battlefield for the great powers is the faith and religion of Russia’s ruling elite right now,” he added.
According to T. Stanovaya, V. Putin and other representatives of Russia’s ruling elite do not fear A. Navalnas as much as they despise him as a destroyer of order.
“They remind residents of the elite district that they want to dump a stroller near their beautiful fountain that has fallen asleep,” he said. “Navaln is not part of their world and they want to get rid of her.”
Stanovaya added that Russia’s ruling elite, especially former KGB officials like Putin and many of his close associates, viewed the opposition leader as a “tool” used by Russia’s enemies abroad and not “as a opponent or even a personality. “
“Our country is governed by the logic of the KGB,” he said.
According to Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russian secret services, A. Navaln’s videos revealing the lavish lifestyle and blatant corruption of the pro-Kremlin elite have attracted a large audience, not only among rebellious youth and liberal intellectuals. , but also among the elite, who are concerned because part of the information was leaked to A. Navalnas in the management of the competing group and that their turn may come, the article reads.
“Nothing causes as much hostility and fear as Navaln,” said Nikolai Petrov, chief investigator at Chatham House in London and an expert on the Kremlin’s decision-making process.
He says this means there is a very long list of potential enemies who may want him dead or at least incapacitated.
However, he added that Navaln is such a well-known target that no one who personally hates him will take any action without at least Putin’s tacit approval.
“It is like a mafia: nothing can be done without the guarantee of approval and impunity from the boss,” he said. “I am not saying that Putin has given a direct order to poison him, but no one can act until he is sure that the boss is happy and will not punish him.”
Navaln, 44, a critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, felt ill on August 20 on a plane to return to Moscow from Tomsk in Siberia. The plane landed in Omsk and was initially treated by A. Navaln in a hospital in that city and later transferred to a clinic for specialized treatment in Berlin.
Western leaders demanded the Kremlin’s response to the Berlin announcement that there was “clear evidence” that Navaln had been exposed to nerve-crippling material from the battle of the infamous Soviet-created Novičiok group.
Material from the same group was used against former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Julia in Salisbury, south-west England, two years ago, and after a German report, many states and organizations condemned Russia.
The poisoning of A. Navaln caused a new crisis in Russian-Western relations.
Kremlin supporters have already put forward a number of startling theories, including statements that Navalna may have been poisoned by the Germans or that he poisoned himself.
Russia has previously denied responsibility for the murder of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England in 2018 by Novičiok, as well as for a number of other similar incidents.
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