The Bellingcat investigative journalism outlet has unmasked some of the Russian intelligence officers responsible for the attempted murder of journalist Alexei Navalny.
In August, Navalny was poisoned with a Novichok class nerve agent while traveling between Siberia and Moscow. But working with CNN, the Insider, and Der Spiegel, Bellingcat has documented who was behind the assassination attempt and how it was carried out. The joint investigation also corroborates and greatly expands on something I reported on Sept. 10: that Russia’s FSB intelligence service quickly proved its culpability for the attack when its officers engaged in panicked communications with Moscow after Navalny was transported alive to the hospital.
Bellingcat’s reporting offers three further conclusions.
First, it clearly establishes that the Russian intelligence community retains numerous independently operating strike teams that use highly toxic poisons, such as those of the Novichok class. Bellingcat documents how the team involved in Navalny’s poisoning included a number of people, each responsible for various medical, surveillance, command, and targeting roles. This is the FSB counterpart to the GRU military intelligence unit responsible for the 2018 Novichok attacks in the United Kingdom. I am led to believe that Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service also has at least one nerve agent strike team. As I’ve previously reported, Novichok’s use is highly restricted within the Russian intelligence community and, at least since the 2018 attacks in the U.K., can be employed only on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s direct authority.
The second takeaway is that, either by laziness or design, these assassination teams tolerate shoddy tradecraft. While claiming to be tourists visiting English Cathedrals, the 2018 GRU team in the U.K. was recorded engaging in unsophisticated countersurveillance measures in anticipation of its attack.
But that’s nothing compared to what Bellingcat outlines in Navalny’s case. The outlet spent a few hundred dollars and was able to access the data trails and personal records of the FSB team. Allowing such a public data footprint is a big no-no in 21st-century espionage. As an extension, both the CIA and British equivalent SIS service expend very significant efforts deleting, disguising, or diluting their officers’ data trails. The FSB? Not so much. One member of the assassination team didn’t even bother to use a false identity in his operational activities.
Such disregard for the most basic elements of tradecraft is quite perplexing. It has only two explanations. First, it’s possible that the Russian intelligence officers involved in these unconventional assassinations don’t really care about being detected, possibly perceiving such detection as advancing Moscow’s not-so-subtle message that it is behind attacks. Alternatively, the intelligence officers are just plain lazy. I suspect it’s a combination of both factors. This cuts to the third takeaway.
Putin sees very little cost in continuing with this activity. While the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has proved that Navalny was poisoned with Novichok, Putin has yet to face serious consequences for Russia’s breach of its signatory obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention. Europe did, for a short moment, hint that it might cancel Putin’s keystone Nord Stream 2 pipeline in retaliation for the attack on Navalny. Predictably, however, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has since backed away from that option. President Trump also has not taken the chemical weapons facet of the Navalny incident seriously enough. The corollary risk to American and allied interests is that Putin will expand assassination plots of this kind beyond more borders and against more targets.
However, Bellingcat has done a great service. Governments no longer have any excuse to say that the intelligence on Navalny’s attempted murder is unclear (it never was). They should act to alter Putin’s strategic calculus.
