According to a report, a reputed member of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) that had been accused of attempting to assassinate Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny on August 20 — a charge which Russian leaders have vehemently denied — inadvertently revealed that a team from Russia’s Federal Security Service indeed tried to assassinate Navalny using poison and only failed because of the fast response time of the pilot and emergency medical services.
“Navalny fell sick on Aug. 20 during a domestic flight in Russia and was flown while still in a coma to Berlin for treatment two days later,” AP reported last week. “Labs in Germany, France and Sweden, and tests by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, established that he was exposed to a Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent.”
In October, Putin claimed he had personally intervened so Navalny could get medical treatment in Germany, Reuters noted, adding, “Navalny, convalescing in Germany, has accused Putin of being behind his poisoning, an allegation the Kremlin has rejected as false and insulting.”
Bellingcat, which reported the new story, had previously reported that FSB was implicated in the nerve-agent poisoning of Navalny, naming “eight clandestine operatives with medical and chemical/biological warfare expertise working under the guise of the FSB’s Criminalistics Institute who had tailed Alexey Navalny on more than 30 occasions since 2017.” Bellingcat noted, “At least three of these operatives were in the close vicinity of Navalny near the time of his poisoning.”
Last week, Putin did not deny that Bellingcat’s report was accurate, but did claim the agents were following Navalny because he had been working with “United States intelligence agencies.” Putin did deny, however, that the FSB had poisoned Navalny, asserting, “if [the FSB] wanted to, they would have taken their job to the end.”
But then reports surfaced that Navalny himself posed as a high-ranking security official in a phone call with Russian agent Konstantin Kudryavtsev on December 14. Bellingcat explained:
Navalny decided to call two members of the FSB squad, Mikhail Shvets and Konstantin Kudryavtsev, by impersonating a senior security official. To both of these officers, Navalny introduced himself as a fictional character: Maxim Ustinov, an “aide to [Chairman of Russia’s Security Council] Nikolai Patrushev.” The premise of the call was that Navalny — playing the role of “Maxim Ustinov” — would ask the officers for an oral report on the reasons for the failure of the Navalny poisoning operation.
Shvets recognized Navalny, but Kudryavtsev did not. Bellingcat summed up the transcript of the call, during which Kudryavtsev discussed the poison being administered to the crotch of Navalny’s underwear:
The main, overarching admission made during the lengthy conversation was that FSB was indeed behind the poisoning operation against Alexey Navalny in Tomsk. While Kudryavtsev says he was not part of the actual poisoning operation in Tomsk, he admits to being involved in at least one previous operation in 2017, as well as in the clean-up operation after Navalny’s hospitalization in Omsk. He does, however, name his colleagues who were part of the Tomsk mission, and describes details that could only be known to a participant of the FSB’s entire operation.
Kudryavtsev analyzes, in uncannily mundane language, the reasons for the failure of the assassination operation. He also describes from a first-person perspective and in great detail the FSB’s cover-up measures undertaken to cleanse Navalny’s clothes and personal items of any trace of the toxin. Kudryavtsev also identifies two additional names, both FSB colleagues, who were involved in the clean-up operation.
As CNN noted, Navalny asked: “What item of clothing was the emphasis on? What is the most risky piece of clothing?” Kudryavtsev answered, “Underpants.” Navalny asked where the Novichok was applied, the inside or outside seams, prompting Kudryavtsev to reply, “The insides, the crotch.”
CNN added, “Toxicologists consulted by CNN say that if applied in granular form to clothes, the Novichok would be absorbed through the skin when the victim begins to sweat.”