A Russian spy who followed Alexei Navalny was tricked by the opposition leader into explaining how an attempted poisoning went down in August.
The agent, Konstantin Kudryavtsev, told Navalny, who posed during a phone call as a senior National Security Council officer trying to understand how the botched assassination went wrong, that the nerve agent Novichok was used in the poisoning. Unlike other Russian assassination attempts using the chemical, which involve applying a liquid or gel containing the nerve agent to surfaces such as doorknobs, Russian operatives put powdered Novichok in Navalny’s underwear, according to CNN.
Russia is still in possession of the clothing Navalny wore on the day of his poisoning. Navalny has called his clothing a “vital piece of evidence.”
Navalny, 44, became violently ill on a flight to Moscow in August. The plane made an emergency landing, and Navalny received medical attention in Omsk before being airlifted to a hospital in Germany, where toxicology reports confirmed that the activist was poisoned. Navalny was temporarily in a coma and is still recovering at an undisclosed location in Germany.
Navalny previously suggested that a cup of tea he drank at an airport in Siberia before his flight had been poisoned.
Labs in Germany, France, Sweden, and an international commission against the use of chemical weapons all independently confirmed the presence of the Soviet-era nerve agent in Navalny’s toxicology reports.
An investigation conducted by CNN and the online investigative outlet Bellingcat took thousands of phone records, flight manifests, and other documents to identify the team of toxin experts who were behind Navalny’s poisoning. The team, comprising six to 10 agents, trailed Navalny for more than three years before the attack.
When talking with Navalny, Kudryavtsev said the emergency landing in Omsk saved the dissident’s life.
“The flight [from Siberia to Moscow] is about three hours, this is a long flight,” Kudryavtsev said. “If you don’t land the plane the effect would’ve been different, and the result would’ve been different. So I think the plane played the decisive part.”
“[We] didn’t expect all this would happen,” Kudryavtsev added. “I’m sure that everything went wrong.”
Navalny said he does not expect an investigation in Russia and reiterated his belief that the poisoning was orchestrated by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“It has become so obvious that it was Putin personally who was behind this,” he said Monday.
