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Alexey Navalny (Photo: REUTERS / Shamil Zhumatov)
The poisoning of Alexei Navalny in Tomsk was the second attempt on the life of a leader of the Russian opposition. A special unit of the FSB Institute for Forensic Science played a key role in it, according to research by The Insider, Bellingcat and CNN with the participation of Der Spiegel.
Telephone billing and travel data show that the operation to poison Navalny was carried out by a group of at least eight FSB agents from a secret department of the department operating under the cover of the FSB Institute of Forensic Sciences. Among them:
- Colonel, military scientist Stanislav Makshakov, who worked at the State Institute for Organic Synthesis Technology in the closed military city of Shikhany-1;
- Oleg Tayakin (“Tarasov”) – leading member of the Navalny poisoning group;
- Alexey Alexandrov (“Frolov”) – worked as an ambulance medic, and later as a military medic, began serving in the FSB in 2013. Apparently, he is the key operative involved in two attempts to poison Navalny in 2020;
- Ivan Osipov (“Spiridonov”) – doctor;
- Konstantin Kudryavtsev (“Sokolov”) – graduated from the Russian Academy of Military Chemical and Biological Defense before starting work at the FSB Institute of Forensic Sciences;
- Alexey Krivoshchekov – Before joining the FSB in 2008, he served in the Ministry of Defense;
- Mikhail shvets (“Stepanov”): the telephone metadata shows that Shvets spends part of his time in the laboratory on Akademika Vargi street, and part, in the base of the FSB Central Security Service;
- Vladimir Panyaev – worked in the FSB border service and later became a co-founder of a company that sells antibacterial lamps. He lives in the same house as Alexei Navalny. After the poisoning, his registration address was changed to the FSB headquarters at 1 Lubyanka.
An analysis of the previous trips of members of this group of poisoners shows that they began to follow Alexei Navalny at least in January 2017, that is, immediately after he announced his plans to participate in Russia’s presidential elections in 2018.
The FSB poisoners monitored Navalny on almost all pre-election trips, with the exception of several day trips, which did not require an overnight stay at his destination. In all, these FSB officers made 47 trips in the same directions Alexei Navalny flew in or was.
After the CEC in December 2017 refused to register Navalny for the presidential election (under the pretext of a conviction in the Kirovles case, the verdict of which was canceled by the ECHR), the surveillance was temporarily interrupted.
In 2020, the search for Navalny resumed in full force.
July 2, 2020, three members of the poison squad – Alexandrov (“Frolov”), Shvets and Panyaev (under their real names) bought tickets to Kaliningrad. Panyaev left the same night, and “Frolov” and Shvets – the next morning, July 3. On the same day, Alexei Navalny and his wife Yulia flew to Kaliningrad for a five-day vacation at the Shloss Hotel Yantarny on the shores of the Baltic Sea.
Shortly before departure, the three FSB agents spoke repeatedly by phone with Colonel Makshakov. He, in turn, exchanged phone calls with his superiors – Generals Kirill Vasiliev and Vladimir Bogdanov.
Two hotel employees independently said that the day before Navalny’s arrival «Several people in civilian clothes came, spoke to the authorities, then entered the rooms, did something there and left. “The hotel staff decided then that it was special services that established wiretapping.
On July 3, Aleksandrov and Makshakov exchanged several SMS from 3 pm to 5 pm Moscow time and once again after midnight. Communication intensified on July 4, with 21 text messages sent in just one day, the last of which was at 4:57 a.m. the next day. (3:57 am on July 5, Kaliningrad local time). On the afternoon of July 5 at 4:55 p.m., the trio flew back to Moscow.
The next day, July 6, Alexey and Yulia Navalny decided to go for a long walk on the beach. They briefly returned to their hotel room and then went to breakfast at a nearby beach cafe. On the way to the cafe, Yulia Navalnaya suddenly felt bad.
“I walked down the street, I felt completely normal. And suddenly he felt bad. So it is very bad. Then it was as bad as I had never felt in my life. Alexey asks: what hurts you? How can I help you? But nothing hurts and I myself do not understand what is happening. He brought me water and I went back to my room. On the way, I sat down on a bench and got up with difficulty. I barely made it to the room, even though it was three hundred meters. She lay down on the bed. It was horrible. An hour later it got easier and I fell asleep. And in the morning everything was completely normal, ”says Yulia.
Alexandrov, Osipov and Panyaev went on a trip to Novosibirsk and Tomsk, where there was a second poisoning attempt.
On August 20, after the poisoning, a group of poisoners moved to Gorno-Altaysk, where the Institute of Problems of Chemical and Energy Technologies is located, which has a special relationship with the Institute of Forensic Sciences.
Probably FSB officers got rid of things that could have traces of Novichok. On August 24, the three flew from Gorno-Altaisk to Moscow.
On August 25, his colleague Kudryavtsev, a qualified chemical weapons specialist, on the contrary, flew from Moscow to Omsk. He stayed in the city for less than 10 hours and returned to Moscow that same night. At that time, Navalny was already in Germany. Kudryavtsev probably flew to find the opponent’s clothes, on which Novichok’s prints were left. So far, authorities have not responded to Navalny where his clothes disappeared and why they are not returning them.
The investigation also notes that there is no evidence that any of the FSB’s poisoners were in Omsk when Navalny was there, therefore the Times information about a repeated attempt to poison the opponent is probably not true.
The opposition Alexei Navalny was poisoned in Russia with a nerve agent from the Novichok group. In 2018, former GRU officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with the same substance in Salisbury, UK.
Three independent laboratories in Germany, France and Sweden confirmed the findings about the Navalny poisoning by Novichok.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons also found traces of a Novichok substance in the analysis of the Russian opponent.
Two days later, the politician was evacuated to the Berlin Charite clinic. Several weeks after the poisoning, Navalny’s condition improved and he was disconnected from the ventilator.
On September 23, Navalny was released from the hospital and is in rehab in Germany.
