Russian spies with knowledge of the poison were close to opposition leader Alexei Navalny when he was exposed to the poison, according to a research paper by Bellingkat, an expert on open source information, the New York Times reported.
In partnership with CNN, the German news site Der Spiegel and the Russian news site The Insider, Bellingkat explored an operation to trail Navalny, led by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).
Bellingatton found telephone records with geographic location data, passenger manifests and residential data that indicated a dialogue between SC signals, nerve agents and an entity believed to be involved in the development of the FSB.
According to a New York Times note, the report indicates that three FSB officers visited Navalny in Siberia in August. Telephone records show they took him to the city of Tomsk where further information shows that one of the agents was not far from the hotel where Navalny and his team were staying on November 20.
Later, while in Naval’s plane, he started screaming in pain, when he was forced to land. He will soon fall into a coma.
Navalny was allowed to travel to Germany for treatment in August and was released from hospital the following month. Physicians at H Hospital Spital indicated that a full recovery was possible for Naval, but the long-term effects of the poisoning were not yet known.
A senior German security official confirmed to the Times that the information provided in the Bellingcat report was accurate. The German government has long known who was to blame for Navalny’s poisoning, the official said.
Putin has allegedly suggested to other world leaders that he was poisoned by Navalny. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov suggested that Navalny was poisoned in Germany or on a flight to Berlin for treatment.
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