It’s not just the novel that has been attacked.
Just a day after he emerged from his medically induced coma, at least three volunteers who joined his team were targeted at their atfis in Novosibirsk, Siberia.
Two masked men were noticed by security cameras, entering the office of the “Coalition Novosibirsk 2020”, which is also the headquarters of Navalny’s local team.
One of them threw an unidentified yellow liquid bottle – described to CNN as a “persistent chemical”, “unbearable” by witnesses – before the volunteers who had come to give a speech about the upcoming local elections fled.
The Kremlin has denied having anything to do with the attacks, but analysts are skeptical.
“Russia has a track record of sudden deaths among Kremlin critics: Anna Politokoskaya, Alexander Nder Litvinenko and Boris Nematsov, but to name a few,” said a longtime researcher at the independent research group “If this was not a murder plot or attempted murder, it was an act of intimidation.”
Which raises an important question: what is the immediate danger of the novel, if and when it returns to Russia?
“I do not think the words safety or security apply to anyone protesting in Russia,” said Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian opposition politician and chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom, who has been poisoned twice in the last five years. Years.
“I can get as much protection as I like, but I have to touch the dorknobs and breathe the air,” he says. “The only real precaution I can take is to get my family out of the country.”
The Kremlin has denied any involvement in the attack on Kara-Murza, although his wife has directly blamed the Russian government.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle has also denied any involvement in Navalny’s poisoning, but Akimenko points out that the language coming from the Kremlin this week is hardly reassuring, given the imminent death of a leading politician.
“Just look at what’s coming out of Russia,” he says. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov says Putin does not need to meet with Navalny; Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says there is no legitimate reason for a criminal investigation; Attempts. “But water blaming anyone in the Russian state.”
While being an outspoken opponent of the government is not a risk enough for Naval, other Putin critics believe that intimidating opponents by being seen as a failed assassination attempt could backfire.
“Now that Alexei Naval has survived, this could prove to be a spectacular miscalculation that only strengthens the opposition and the novel,” says Bill Broader, a leading financier who has become a thorn in Putin’s side after pressure from US sanctions Magnitsky, who died under suspicious circumstances in a Russian prison, is named.
Kara-Murza pointed out that in the very area of Siberia where the campaign office was attacked, Navalny’s allies took advantage of this week’s election against Putin’s ruling United Russia.
“While the Russians have a real choice, they are very happy to show how sick they are of Putin’s one-man rule,” he told CNN.
Whenever he returns to Russia, the risk for both him and his supporters is likely to remain very high; Has this affected the morale of the opposition?
“Putin rules through symbolism,” Broder says. “The purpose is to intimidate the less popular people by taking the most popular opposition politician and poisoning him with a deadly nerve agent.”
So, will it work?
Kara-Murza says Putin critic Boris Nemtsov, who was assassinated near the Kremlin in February 2015, was telling his colleagues just days before taking part in anti-government protests in Moscow: “We must do what we have to do. And it should come. Of course, we understand the risks, but we are determined, not afraid. ”
And when Akimenko says: “If Russia’s opposition leaders are not concerned, they should be.” He added: “They were both fearless in the guise of personal physical assault and torture against Naval.”
The episode of the novel revealed the dangers of political protests in Russia to the world.
Kara-Murza says that, but for those who actively participated in that fight, they only understood the threat they already knew.
“I was poisoned twice,” he said. “Both times I was inside [a] Coma. Both times the doctors told my wife I had a 5% chance of surviving. Boris Nemtsov had 0% when shot in the back. But it’s not about safety; It is about doing the right thing for our country. If those of us who stand in opposition leave and run, it will be a gift to the Kremlin. ”
CNN’s Mary Ilyushina contributed to the Moscow report
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