Published 04:03 IST, December 15th 2020
Alexei Navalny was attacked by Russian spies who were shadowing him since 2017: Report
According to Bellingcat, the Russian security service officers initially tried to poison him on his personal trip to Kaliningrad with his wife Yulia in July.
An undercover hit squad working for Russia’s FSB spy agency poisoned Russian opposing leader Alexei Navalny after shadowing him on his previous trips, an investigative journalism website Bellingcat claimed. Citing telecoms and travel details, it alleged that Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) was behind the failed assassination attempt. Elaborating further, the report said the Russian agency started tracking him in 2017 when it was first announced that he was contesting against President Vladimir Putin.
"Throughout 2017, and again in 2019 and 2020, FSB operatives from a clandestine unit specialized in working with poisonous substances shadowed Navalny during his trips across Russia, traveling alongside him on more than 30 overlapping flights to the same destinations," Bellingcat’s report claimed.
According to Bellingcat, the squad of Russian security service officers initially tried to poison him on his personal trip to Kaliningrad with his wife Yulia in July. It added that the FSB agents then followed him to Novosibirsk in Siberia and then to Tomsk, where he was eventually poisoned.
All members of the unit reportedly communicated with each other throughout the trip and the evidence seen by Bellingcat suggested that the communication rose and hours when Navalany left his hotel for the airport.
'Undercover FSB agents'
Bellingcat also identified three "undercover" FSB agents involved. These operatives, two of whom travelled undercover identities, are Alexey Alexandrov, Ivan Osipov, both medical doctors, and Vladimir Panyaev. "These three were supported and supervised by at least five more FSB operatives, some of whom also traveled to Omsk, where Navalny had been hospitalized," the website stated.
Alexei Navalny, a staunch critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, fell sick under mysterious circumstances on a flight back to Moscow from Siberia on August 20. He was rushed to a hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk after the plane made an emergency landing. Navalny was put into an artificial coma and was moved to Germany after much debate over his transfer. German doctors later confirmed that Navalny was poisoned with the lethal chemical agent Novichok and that traces of the former Soviet-era chemical weapon was found in his blood.
Updated 04:03 IST, December 15th 2020