Russian opponent Alexei Navalny

  • Navalny blames the Russian intelligence: I know the names of those who wanted me dead

  • Navalny accuses Putin: "I have no doubts, he ordered to poison me"

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December 21, 2020Russian opponent Alexei Navalny says he managed to get a confession from one of the Russian federal agents who allegedly tried to kill him by poisoning him. 



This was reported by the online newspaper Meduza, explaining that in a video on YouTube Navalny said he called the agent pretending to be assistant to Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Russian National Security Council, and to have talked to him for about an hour asking him questions on the failed attempt to poison him in August.



Navalny said he made the call on December 14, hours after an international team of journalists and researchers posted an investigation on the Bellingcat investigative website claiming that the activist had been poisoned by a team of undercover hit men. who works for the Russian FSB spy agency after following him on several previous trips. 



Specifically, Navalny phoned Konstantin Kudryavtsev, who according to Bellingcat is a chemical weapons specialist, and pretended he was gathering information to report to Patrushev about the failed operation.

In the conversation, the agent allegedly told Navalny that the dose of poison used would have been fatal if the pilot of the plane he was traveling on did not make an emergency landing in Omsk and if the paramedics on the ground had not acted so quickly. as they did. 



Kudryavtsev also reportedly named another person involved in the operation against Navalny, Vasily Kalashnikov: Meduza reports that the telephone records show that FSB agent Stanislav Makshakov contacted Kalashnikov after Navalny went into a coma. 



Navalny, 44, known for his anti-corruption investigations, fell ill on Thursday 20 August on a flight back to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk.

The plane then made an emergency landing in Omsk, where he was admitted to intensive care.

His staff immediately claimed it was poisoning, saying the activist felt ill after drinking poisoned tea before boarding the plane.

At the end of a diplomatic tug-of-war, the Russian opponent was then transferred to Berlin, to the Charité hospital.

In September, Navalny was released from a coma and was discharged from the hospital.