“I am absolutely certain that Putin was aware,” Navalny said on Tuesday during an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.
“The operation of such a skill and for such a long time cannot exist without a statement by the Chief of the (Russian Security Service) FSB, Mr Bortnikov. And he would never dare without the direct order of President Putin. . “
The anti-corruption crusader responded to an investigation by the Bellingcat group and joined CNN, which recounted how an FSB unit tracked his team on an August trip to Siberia.
The investigation found that two teams of five or six agents were deployed on Navalny’s Siberian journey in August 2020, including people specializing in toxins and nerve agents.
The Russian government has not responded to the report, although the Kremlin has previously denied any involvement in Navalny’s poisoning.
Navalny fell ill while traveling on August 20 on a four-hour flight from Tomsk to Moscow.
The captain of the plane took off for the city of Omsk and asked for medical attention. It later turned out that the Russian opposition leader had been poisoned by Novichok nerve agent.
The European Union has since imposed sanctions on several senior officials, including Bortnikov, who said he was “responsible for providing support to those who poisoned or were involved in Navalny”.
The CNN / Bellingcat investigation also found that the FSB team had followed Navalny’s team on more than 30 trips to and from Moscow since 2017.
“We all understand how [the] sausage was made [now]’,’ Said Navalny in response to the details revealed.
T.this is a groundbreaking story, more to come …