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An agent from the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) mistakenly confirmed Aleksei Navalny’s assassination plan and revealed how he was poisoned in August: The deadly Noviciok neorotoxin was placed in his underwear, writes CNN.
The FSB agent made these revelations unintentionally, in a telephone conversation with Aleksei Navalny, who pretended to be a senior official in the Russian National Security Council. During the 45-minute conversation, Konstantin Kudryavtsev also provided information about other people involved in the Navalny poisoning in the Siberian city of Tomsk and how he was sent to clear up the traces of the assassination attempt.
Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed that FSB agents were pursuing Navalny because “he had the support of the American special services”, but rejected the idea that his opponent had been poisoned by the Russian special services. “If (this) had been wanted, the business would have been completed,” said the Kremlin leader.
The Bellingcat-CNN investigation found that a team of Russian special services FSB chemical weapons experts, consisting of 6 to 10 agents, followed Navalny for more than three years. After identifying most of the team members, CNN and Bellingcat attempted to communicate with them and their superiors.
One man, Oleg Tayakin, closed the door on CNN reporters. Others did not respond at all. At the same time, Navalny was making phone calls. At first he told the agents who he was and they closed immediately. But Navalny’s team decided to take a different approach in the last call to Kudryavtsev.
Navalny, who is still recovering in a secret location in Germany, described himself as a senior official in Russia’s National Security Council, tasked with reporting on the mission: “What didn’t work and why did the Tomsk operation with? Was Navalny a total failure?
Kudryavtsev’s responses on the 45-minute call provide the first direct evidence of the FSB’s involvement in the Navalny poisoning. Although the agent did not want to speak through an insecure phone line, Navalny managed to convince him that the bosses were requesting an urgent report, and the details “would be discussed in the Security Council, at the highest level. “
Kudryavtsev provided a detailed description of how the lethal neurotoxin Noviciok was applied to Navalny’s underwear.
Navalny asked, “What garment was the focus on? What is the most dangerous garment?”
Kudryavtsev replied simply: “Panties.”
Navalny asked for more details and asked where exactly Noviciok was applied: the internal or external seams. “Inside, between the legs,” Kudryavtsev replied.
Toxicologists consulted by CNN say that if applied as a powder to clothing, Noviciok can be absorbed through the skin when the victim begins to sweat. They say that in this case, the attackers would have used a solid form of neurotoxin, and not a liquid or gel, as in the attack on former double agent Sergei Skripal.
CNN cannot confirm whether Kudryavtsev was in Tomsk on the day the poison was applied. But the appeal showed that he had detailed knowledge of what had happened and was involved in Noviciok’s clean-up operation after Navalny was released from the hospital.
What the Bellingcat Research Shows
A cell of chemical weapons experts from the Russian special services FSB was at the origin of the poisoning of Aleksei Navalny, are the conclusions of an investigation by the Bellingcat research site, Der Spiegel and CNN.
According to Bellingcat, three of these men – to whom he reveals his name and publishes images in which they appear – followed Navalny on 37 of his trips, News.ro reports.
They were close to Navalny when the opponent was poisoned in August in Siberia with a nerve agent.
A critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Aleksei Navalny, was poisoned in a hotel room in Tomsk. Traces of a Noviciok-like substance were found in the water bottles provided at the hotel, discovered by the opponent’s entourage.
Aleksei Navalny was eventually transferred to Germany, where she was treated. In Russia, the Kremlin has refused to open any criminal investigation, which it considers unfounded.
The FSB, the KGB’s successor from the Soviet era, has yet to respond to the allegations.
Russia has consistently denied trying to kill Alexei Navalny, one of President Vladimir Putin’s main opponents, who fell ill in August on a plane returning from Siberia to Moscow.
Two days after falling ill, he was transferred to Germany, where he is still and where he has been treated for about a month, at the Charité Hospital in Berlin.
Germany and its main Western allies have announced that the Russian opponent was the victim of an assassination attempt on Noviciok, a nerve agent created in the Soviet era.
Bellingcat and the Russian publication The Insider on Monday published the results of a survey they conducted with Der Spiegel and CNN, which is based on various data sources, including airplane flights and geolocation via mobile phones.
Navalny, constantly watched by the FSB
Bellingcat, The Insider, Der Spiegel and CNN designate individuals and laboratories and accuse FSB agents “specializing in chemical weapons, chemistry and medicine” of secretly following Aleksei Navalny 37 times in the last four years. Russia.
“These agents were close to the opposition activist for the days and hours corresponding to the moment he was poisoned with a chemical weapon for military use,” Bellingcat writes.
“Given this series of incredible coincidences, it is up to the Russian state to prove its innocence,” according to the site.
Aleksei Navalny said his teams had studied these findings and that his case was now resolved, despite the lack of an official investigation in Russia.
“I know who wanted to kill me”
“I know who wanted to kill me. I know where they live. I know where I work. I know their true identities. I know their false identities. I have their photos,” says the opponent in a video recording in which he holds photos of the men firmly in his hand. cited in this research.
“This is a secret group of FSB killers that includes doctors and chemists, about how they tried to kill me several times and almost killed my wife once,” he added.
Aleksei Navalny is convinced that Vladimir Putin ordered this operation against him, in retaliation for announcing his candidacy in the Russian presidential elections at the end of 2016, but in which he was ultimately banned from participating. for procedural reasons.
The Kremlin, which suggests that the Russian opponent is collaborating with the CIA, the US intelligence services, denies the slightest involvement of Vladimir Putin in the poisoning of Aleksei Navalny.
