Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny said on Saturday that his poisoning two years ago and his subsequent arrest ended up exposing Russian President Vladimir Putin and his regime.
In a letter he sent from prison where he is serving a nine-year prison sentence, released by his supporters, Navalny said his case exposed the “criminal nature” and “dysfunction and failure” of the Putin regime, affecting “the entire political system in Russia.” According to the leader The Russian opposition, citing the Spanish EFE agency, said the regime had abandoned all disguise to become “a repressive and authoritarian regime, without further restrictions”.
This is the second time I’m celebrating my second birthday. The day they tried to kill me, but for some reason I didn’t die,” referring to the fact that he survived the poisoning.
Navalny was taken to hospital in serious condition on August 20, 2020, on suspicion of poisoning, after feeling unwell during a flight from the Siberian city of Tomsk to Moscow. The plane made an emergency landing in Omsk, Siberia, due to Navalny’s deteriorating health.
Two days later, the Russian authorities allowed him to be transferred to Germany, where he was treated at the Charité University clinic in Berlin for 32 days of nerve gas poisoning. After spending some time in Germany, he returned to Russia in January 2021, but was arrested upon arrival in Moscow. The 46-year-old lawyer and politician, whose name Putin avoids speaking, is currently serving a prison sentence for alleged fraud.
In the released letter, Navalny noted that the Russian authorities have not yet initiated any criminal proceedings for poisoning him with a military chemical agent of the “Novichok” group. He said that he did not understand the position of the authorities, who either deny that he was poisoned or say that he was poisoned with “Novichok” by Western intelligence services for provocative purposes.
“The authorities at the highest levels, starting with Putin, firmly and at the same time defend these two versions,” he wrote in his letter. Navalny said “all members of the group of killers” who tried to kill him have been identified. On December 14, 2020, Bellingcat, Der Spiegel and CNN, along with Navalny, reported the involvement of a leadership of chemical weapons experts in his poisoning.
They are all members of the FSB [Serviço Federal de Segurança]. “It has been proven that they were involved in several failed poisoning attempts (Dmitriy Bykov and Vladimir Kara-Murza) and several murders,” Navalny said in the letter released today.
According to the opposition, none of the FSB agents were brought to justice. Perhaps the exception is Konstantin Kudryatsev, the miserable chemist who told me all the details of the attack on the phone. He has disappeared and seems to have simply been killed.”
Navalny spoke to Kudryatsev pretending to be a member of the Russian Security Council and published the recording of the phone conversation in the media. It also commemorated the second anniversary of the poisoning of Russian opponent German Chancellor Olaf Schulz and the head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell, who had called for his release and an investigation into the case.
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