Leading Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny said … he tricked one of the several security officers linked to his poisoning into outlining the details of the operation […]
» Read more
An elite … FSB[] chemical weapons unit shadowed … Navalny’s movements for … three years up until his near-fatal poisoning, a joint media investigation said […]
» Read more
“The Russian opposition politician, who narrowly escaped death by nerve agent poisoning, remains undeterred from challenging Putin’s hegemony.” “Though not yet restored to full health, … Navalny is recovering in Germany from the poisoning that almost killed him … preparing to return to Russia to continue his fight for democracy. … Not surprisingly, the Kremlin has refused to initiate a […]
» Read more
“Team scoured his hotel room and found a water bottle they say has traces of Novichok, a nerve agent” “… [A]fter … Navalny collapsed … on a plane over Siberia with signs of poisoning, his supporters rushed to [his] hotel room ….. bagg[ing] everything they could find … in the hopes of solving the mystery …. Days later, German doctors […]
» Read more
“Julia and I had our anniversary … 20 years of being wed … You, of course, have seen this a hundred times … one loving person lies in a coma … the other brings him back to life with her love and incessant care […]”
» Read more
MOSCOW. Sept 21 (Interfax) – The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office has asked the relevant German authorities to learn certain important details related to the incident involving Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny. “In particular, [the Prosecutor General’s Office] is seeking to find out who planned Navalny’s trip to Novosibirsk and Tomsk and when, who bought the tickets, booked the hotels, and […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Sept. 19, 2020) Alexei Navalny has said he has difficulty performing everyday functions and that he faces a “long road” of recovery after his Novichok poisoning which left him in a coma. The opposition leader posted an update to his Instagram page Saturday from the Charite clinic in Berlin where he is being treated, outlining […]
» Read more
“… The message came hours after a senior German security official … [said] Navalny was awake, alert and had told German prosecutors that he was refusing to cooperate with a Russian inquiry into his case. He also vowed … to return to Russia as soon as possible to continue his work. … German officials now say they have almost no […]
» Read more
Newly emerging accounts of the sudden illness of Russian opposition figure and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny reportedly refute official claims that Navalny had other medical causes for his symptoms. “… [P]aramedics who treated … Navalny after he fell violently ill on a plane last month found no increase in his blood sugar in initial tests and saw no signs of […]
» Read more
Russia’s Interior Ministry wants to question … Navalny in Berlin, where he is being treated after German doctors reported “unequivocal evidence” … he was poisoned with … military-grade nerve agent Novichok, contradicting … Russian counterparts who said they … found no trace of poison […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Sept. 10, 2020) Leading Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a new, deadlier variant of military-grade nerve agent Novichok, the German weekly Die Zeit reported Wednesday. Hours after the Die Zeit report, The Insider news website reported, citing anonymous sources, that Navalny, 44, has almost completely recovered after falling violently ill on a flight […]
» Read more
“Germany has handed over all … data related to its investigation into … [the] agent … used to poison … Navalny to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). … Merkel … announced that a top German military lab … [confirmed] ‘unequivocal proof of a chemical nerve agent from the Novichok group’ …. ‘… shocking information about the […]
» Read more
“[G7] [f]oreign ministers … issued a joint statement … condemning … ‘the confirmed poisoning’ of … Navalny. … sa[ying] Germany … has concluded … he was ‘the victim of an attack with a chemical nerve-agent of the “Novichok” group, a substance developed by Russia.’ It called on Russia to investigate who is responsible, ‘bearing in mind Russia’s commitments under the […]
» Read more
“… HALL: … it’s really not surprising at all that we’ve had this assassination attempt on a guy like Navalny. These are intelligence operations. It’s the Russian intelligence services that are responsible for doing this. … “
» Read more
Looming U.S. elections and disparate EU interests could translate into a symbolic response. (Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Jake Cordell – Sept. 4, 2020) Lawmakers across Europe and the U.S. are scrambling to respond to the revelation that Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was poisoned with Novichok – a lethal Soviet-era military nerve agent – with the possibility of fresh sanctions […]
» Read more
But if the Kremlin critic is unable to return to health, Russia’s opposition will lose its most recognizable leader. (Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Evan Gershkovich- August 27, 2020) While Russia’s most prominent opposition politician Alexei Navalny lies in a coma in a Berlin hospital after suffering an apparent poisoning last week, the pressure on his activities continues back home. […]
» Read more
For five days now, Russian anti-corruption activist Aleksei Navalny has been comatose, medically induced into unconsciousness in an effort to keep his body from shutting down […]
» Read more
“… Navalny arrived at Berlin’s Charité hospital … in a police convoy from Tegel Airport and remains under heavy guard with three cordons of police …. [after] nearly two days in [the] [Omsk] hospital …. The [FSB] statement … surprising in … [its] level of detail … throw[s] … light on just how heavily Navalny’s movements are monitored …. admitt[ing] […]
» Read more
“Poison has been a preferred tool of the Russian security service for more than a century, and critics of the Kremlin say it remains in the arsenal today.” “… [O]ther countries … have targeted killing programs … limited to counterterrorism …. [yet] Russia … has been accused of targeting a wide variety of opponents both at home and abroad. The […]
» Read more
“… This guessing game, though tempting, is not only unsolvable; it misses the insight that attacks like Nemtsov’s murder and Navalny’s poisoning really offer about Putin’s Russia — the most pernicious and terrifying fact is not whether Putin did or did not issue orders to his underlings to off perceived enemies but that anyone from the ruling circle can use […]
» Read more
“… [In] [a] heart-rending video … one of the [plane’s] passengers … capture[d] … Navalny’s groans and cries of pain. They sounded like the screams of a dying man. … If the Russian government has now decided to get rid of … Navalny, that suggests … some new political configuration in which there is no longer a need for any […]
» Read more
“Alexey Navalny … creator of Russia’s leading alternative-media outlet and its only real political organization, is now in a coma in the Siberian city of Omsk. [An] anti-corruption blogger[,] … for years [Navalny] has been … Putin’s only formidable opponent[,] … [i.e., Putin’s] only adversary who has remained in Russia, stayed active, and maintained prominence despite repeated attacks from the […]
» Read more
Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia have relocated to New Zealand two years after suffering a near-fatal poisoning attempt that Britain pins on Russia […]
» Read more
“… a destabilization campaign in Moldova … the poisoning of an arms dealer in Bulgaria …. a thwarted coup in Montenegro. … an attempt to assassinate a former Russian spy in Britain using a nerve agent. … Western security officials have … concluded that these operations, and potentially many others, are part of a coordinated and ongoing campaign to destabilize […]
» Read more
“… Trump … signed an executive order imposing new sanctions on Russia, responding to growing pressure from Congress to further punish Moscow after a nerve agent attack …. the second round of sanctions by the administration after a botched attempt in March 2018 to fatally poison a former Russian military intelligence officer, Sergei Skripal, in … Salisbury [in the UK]. […]
» Read more
YAROSLAVL. May 18 (Interfax) – Former Russian military intelligence (GRU) officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia Skripal, who were poisoned in April 2018 in Salisbury, the United Kingdom, are alive, but they are not maintaining contacts with their relatives in Russia, Viktoria Skripal, Sergei’s niece, said in an interview with Interfax on Saturday. “As far as I know, [Sergei […]
» Read more
“… former sports reporter … [Yuri Dud] runs his own YouTube interview show …. generat[ing] millions of views … a serious competitor even to state-owned TV. … [T]he subject of Dud’s latest show shocked his … 5 million [subscribers] and the general public: a two-hour documentary about the Kolyma region, in Russia’s far northeast … almost synonymous with Stalin-era repressions. […]
» Read more
“Russian state media published 138 contradictory accounts of the nerve agent attack on former double agent Sergei Skripal last year …”
» Read more
“… Bellingcat has been able to confirm the actual identity of one of the two officers. The suspect using the cover identity of ‘Ruslan Boshirov’ is in fact Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga, a highly decorated GRU officer bestowed with Russia’s highest state award, Hero of the Russian Federation. Following Bellingcat’s own identification, multiple sources familiar with the person and/or the investigation have […]
» Read more
(Interfax – September 19, 2018) The Russian Interior Ministry has said it is impossible to establish whether a person works for the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence, based on the Federal Migration Service’s (FMS) database. The Interior Ministry thereby dismissed the joint investigation by the Bellingcat investigative site and Russian website The Insider, according to which the suspects in ex-spy Sergei […]
» Read more
“The retired agent has doubted that Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Bochirov are plausible as killers after they were spotted numerous times on CCTV … The pair, who are suspected of poisoning the Skripals, were spotted numerous times on CCTV and entered the country on Russian passports. Choosing to remain anonymous, the ex-spy said the two men, who claimed to be […]
» Read more
“They were, they declared, just tourists. Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov – identified … as … Russian intelligence agents who poisoned four people in … Salisbury – were simply on vacation …. This type of tactic has a history. … [During] the invasion of Crimea … Putin insisted … Russian troops marching across the peninsula were locals who … picked […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – September 14, 2018) The United States has said Russia would be able to avoid a second, more punishing round of sanctions over the nerve-agent attack in Britain if it allows chemical weapons inspections. The U.S. sided with the U.K. last month in concluding that Moscow had used a nerve agent against a former Russian agent […]
» Read more
(Article ©2018 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – Sept. 14, 2018 – also appeared at rferl.org/a/kremlin-says-it-would-consider-british-request-over-skripal-poisoning-suspects/29489831.html) The Kremlin says it will study any British request to question the two men London suspects of trying to murder a former spy, in strict accordance with Russian law. But spokesman Dmitry Peskov said no such request has been received so far. […]
» Read more
MOSCOW. Sept 13 (Interfax) – Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, whom the United Kingdom suspects of poisoning former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, said in an interview shown on RT that they were engaged in business related to sports nutrition, and this is the purpose of their occasional trips abroad. “We study the […]
» Read more
“Sergei V. Skripal was a little fish. … But … Skripal was significant [to] … Putin, an intelligence officer of the same age and training. … When [the intelligence war between the USSR and the West] was suspended, both struggled to adapt. … While … Skripal was trying to reinvent himself, … Putin and his allies, former intelligence officers, were […]
» Read more
“… [N]ew sanctions imposed on Russia … [feature] a ban on export of anything with a potential military use, announced by the State Department …. Putin’s Russia is asking for punishment when his agents use a chemical weapon against a double agent, brazenly meddle in Western elections, cheat in international sports, ruthlessly ravage Ukrainian territory or violate human rights. … […]
» Read more
“… On Friday, PM Dmitry Medvedev called potential new US sanctions ‘economic war,’ noting that Russia must respond with economic, political, and if necessary, other methods. Today, Russian … [commentators] discuss Moscow’s options. …”
» Read more
“… A British security source … [said] the nerve agent attack on the former double agent Sergei Skripal was also ordered by the [GRU] intelligence agency. The British government is poised to submit an extradition request to Moscow for two Russians suspected of carrying out the Salisbury attack that left one person dead and three injured, including Skripal and his […]
» Read more
“… The latest poisoning raised the prospect that in their haste to flee the area, the would-be assassins simply tossed aside a top secret, Soviet-designed weapon that the British authorities, despite a cleanup operation that lasted weeks, failed to discover. …” Click here for: “Novichok Was in a Perfume Bottle, U.K. Victim Says” – New York Times/Michael Schwirtz, Eric Schmitt […]
» Read more
“… along Salisbury’s shopping streets, residents and businesspeople compare notes on the questions that remain unanswered. …”
» Read more
“… The State Department should consider adding [Russia] to its list of state sponsors of terrorism, alongside its close allies Iran and Syria. … Russia has invaded … Georgia and Ukraine … supports the murderous regime of Bashar al-Assad and our enemies in Afghanistan … is engaged in active information warfare against Western democracies, including meddling in the 2016 United […]
» Read more
“Unless you give a testimony, doctor, that there wasn’t a gas attack, we’ll be killing your children”
» Read more
(Article ©2018 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – April 18, 2018 – also appeared at rferl.org/a/british-media-regulator-probing-rt-s-impartiality-after-salisbury-poisoning/29174828.html) Britain’s media watchdog has started probing whether Russian news channel RT broke impartiality rules in its programs after a former Russian double agent and his daughter were poisoned in the English city of Salisbury last month. Media regulator Ofcom warned on […]
» Read more
“Russia longs to be taken seriously in matters of global affairs, but … Putin has demonstrated … disdain for the rules-based post-World War II order. What does Russia want instead? In two recent incidents involving the use of outlawed chemicals[, the assassination attempt on Skripal in Britain and a chemical weapons attack in Syria], Russia’s answer has been a frantic […]
» Read more
“Russia has been researching the application of chemical agents to door handles as a way to assassinate its enemies, and has been training personnel ‘from special units’ to carry out such attacks, said Mark Sedwill, Britain’s national security adviser … in a letter to the secretary general of NATO. … Sedwill’s letter, the most detailed account of British intelligence on […]
» Read more
“… Trump … said the U.S. could aid Russia’s economy and sought an end to what he called an ‘arms race,’ lamenting that relations with Moscow had reached an all-time low. …Trump … on Twitter warned Russia that missiles ‘will be coming’ in Syria following a suspected chemical attack and chided … Putin for being ‘partners’ with … Assad. … […]
» Read more
“A world grown numb to the slaughter of civilians in Syria has been roused in the last 48 hours by photographs on social media of lifeless men, women and children in the rebel-held town of Douma, many with white foam coming from their mouths and nostrils, victims of chemical weapons. Outraged Western nations blame President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and demand […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – April 10, 2018) Russia said on Tuesday it will propose to the United Nations that international inspectors visit the site of a suspected chemical weapons attack in the Syrian town of Douma, a move which follows U.S. President Donald Trump’s warning of quick, forceful action in response to the incident. At least 60 people were […]
» Read more
“Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal is no longer in critical condition and his health is improving rapidly more than a month since he [and his daugter were] poisoned with a nerve agent …. Britain said they were poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent first developed by the Soviet Union. Russia has denied it had anything to do with the first […]
» Read more