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FTR#1299 Interview with Lucy Komisar About “Navalny”

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FTR#1299 This pro­gram was record­ed in one, 60-minute seg­ment.

Intro­duc­tion: A wel­come return to our air­waves of Lucy Komis­ar fea­tures her char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly inci­sive analy­sis of an Oscar-win­ning doc­u­men­tary about Alex­ei Naval­ny, the West­’s “Baskin Rob­bins Fla­vor of the Month” in the Russ­ian polit­i­cal domain.

Sup­port­ed by char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly selec­tive cov­er­age by West­ern jour­nal­is­tic and polit­i­cal ele­ments, Alex­ei Naval­ny has demon­strat­ed pro­to-fascis­tic ten­den­cies and is more of a pro­pa­gan­da phe­nom­e­non than a real polit­i­cal leader.

In this pro­gram, we present Lucy’s analy­sis of the Naval­ny doc­u­men­tary, includ­ing her thoughts con­cern­ing pos­si­ble intel­li­gence con­nec­tions to the doc­u­men­tary’s pro­duc­tion and a qua­si-McCarthyite response to her prob­ing ques­tions.

Q On March 12, the film “Naval­ny” won an Oscar. It pre­vi­ous­ly won a Baf­ta award in the UK. But your sto­ry proves the film is a fake, dis­in­for­ma­tion. Give us the back­ground to the mak­ing of the film. What is the film about? Who are its authors? Who real­ly is Naval­ny?

A   It is about Russ­ian polit­i­cal activist Alex­ei Naval­ny, who the west charges, with no evi­dence, was poi­soned with Novi­chok by Russ­ian secu­ri­ty agents, was allowed by Rus­sia to fly to Ger­many for hos­pi­tal care, and when he returned to Rus­sia was arrest­ed. 

The three peo­ple cred­it­ed as the production’s authors are

Cana­di­an Daniel Roher; he admits he has nev­er vis­it­ed Rus­sia nor speaks Russ­ian.

Bul­gar­i­an Chris­to Grozev of Belling­cat; an orga­ni­za­tion open­ly hos­tile to Rus­sia which acknowl­edges financ­ing by gov­ern­ments of the U.S, UK and Europe.

And Russ­ian Maria Pevchikh; who has worked for Navalny’s orga­ni­za­tion but has lived most­ly out­side Rus­sia since 2006 and in 2019 obtained a British pass­port.

The inves­ti­ga­tion was done by Belling­cat, though Roher is claimed as the film­mak­er.

Q Tell us more about Naval­ny.

He has strong Wash­ing­ton ties. Naval­ny was a 2009–2010 fel­low of the Open Soci­ety Foun­da­tions financed by George Soros, which sup­port­ed oppo­si­tion NGOs in Rus­sia before being banned in 2015. Then in 2010, he grad­u­at­ed from the Yale World Fel­lows which was called the White House Fel­lows under Bill Clinton’s pres­i­den­cy.

When Naval­ny returned from the U.S. to Rus­sia he con­tin­ued the “nation­al­ist” ie. racist anti-migrant activ­i­ties he had start­ed in 2007, when he was a founder of the Nation­al Russ­ian Lib­er­a­tion Move­ment . NAROD includ­ed the Move­ment Against Ille­gal Immi­gra­tion , a far-right orga­ni­za­tion. In addi­tion to oppos­ing ille­gal immi­gra­tion, it  tar­get­ed Rus­sians from eth­nic, reli­gious, and sex­u­al minor­i­ty back­grounds. It pro­vid­ed assis­tance to Nazi skin­heads impli­cat­ed in attacks on for­eign­ers, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of sex­u­al minori­ties, anti-fas­cists and adher­ents of “non-tra­di­tion­al reli­gions.”

In a video, Naval­ny com­pares peo­ple from the Cau­cus­es to cock­roach­es, and says that using a swat­ter or a shoe against them was no good. He said “I rec­om­mend a hand­gun.” My arti­cle includes a link to the video on YouTube.

Navalny’s NAROD stopped oper­at­ing in 2011, the year the Supreme Court of Rus­sia declared its part­ner an extrem­ist orga­ni­za­tion and banned it. Naval­ny said NAROD “orga­ni­za­tion­al­ly failed” but for­mu­lat­ed a “very cor­rect plat­form.”

Direc­tor Roher says in the film that, “he was known for hav­ing flirt­ed with the extreme right.” “Flirt­ed?” It looked like a pret­ty sol­id mar­riage! In the film, Naval­ny says we are cre­at­ing coali­tion, broad­er coali­tion to fight their regime…And I con­sid­er it’s my polit­i­cal super­pow­er, I can talk to every­one. Any­way, well, they are cit­i­zen of Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion.”

When Naval­ny returned to Rus­sia, he also start­ed an anti-cor­rup­tion cam­paign, which was endorsed by Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Clin­ton.

Q was he real­ly an anti-cor­rup­tion fight­er?

A No, he had his own crim­i­nal fraud prob­lem, along with his broth­er Oleg.

In 2008, when the state-owned Russ­ian Post decid­ed to end col­lect­ing parcels from clients’ dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­ters, Oleg Naval­ny, per­suad­ed sev­er­al com­pa­nies to shift to the pri­vate­ly owned Chief Sub­scrip­tion Agency (GPA), not reveal­ing it was a com­pa­ny he, Alex­ei and their par­ents had just set up in tax haven Cyprus. Lat­er, Yves Rocher Vos­tok, part of the French cos­met­ics firm, sued that they were deprived of free choice and weren’t told GPA was using sub­con­trac­tors which charged around half as much as they paid GPA and that the Naval­ny cut-out kept the dif­fer­ence as prof­it. A court gave Alex­ei a sus­pend­ed sen­tence of 3 ½ years and his broth­er a prison sen­tence of the same term.

The Euro­pean Court on Human Rights found, “By all accounts, GPA was set up for prof­it-mak­ing pur­pos­es and the appli­cants thus pur­sued the same goal as any oth­er founder of a com­mer­cial enti­ty.” So, in spite of ques­tion­able insid­er tricks, the Euro­pean court deemed it no crime, because that is how busi­ness is done. But it was still an ethics prob­lem for the “fight­er against cor­rup­tion,” because some peo­ple think that mak­ing mon­ey off such insid­er deal­ing is uneth­i­cal.

Although the plain­tiff Yves Rocher was part of a French com­pa­ny, which sued for dam­ages in France, West­ern media depict­ed the tri­al as a sham insti­gat­ed by Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin and didn’t report the full details of the case. Navalny’s vio­la­tion of his con­vic­tion parole by fail­ing to return to Rus­sia as soon as he had recov­ered his health in Ger­many were the grounds for his arrest on Jan­u­ary 17, 2021, and his sub­se­quent court sen­tence to prison, where he remains. U.S. court rules for parole vio­la­tions would not be dif­fer­ent.

Q Naval­ny claimed to be an oppo­si­tion leader. Was he?

A Wash­ing­ton was pump­ing Naval­ny as an oppo­si­tion leader, but was not so pop­u­lar in Rus­sia. Accord­ing to the respect­ed Lev­a­da Poll, he was draw­ing no more than 2% among Rus­sians coun­try­wide – less in the regions, more among the young in Moscow.

Q How did this new poi­son­ing dra­ma start?

A On August 20th, wind­ing up a cam­paign in south­east­ern Siberia, Naval­ny got on the flight from Tom­sk to Moscow and fell ill. On the pilot’s deci­sion, the air­craft made an unsched­uled land­ing in Omsk, and Naval­ny was tak­en to a city hos­pi­tal. The emer­gency ward staff treat­ed his symp­toms and sta­bi­lized his con­di­tion. A med­ical evac­u­a­tion air­craft arrived from Ger­many the next day after Navalny’s wife, Yulia Naval­naya, received Krem­lin per­mis­sion for his treat­ment in Ger­many, and he was flown from Omsk to Berlin August 22, with Naval­naya and Pevchikh accom­pa­ny­ing him on the flight.

Q The west press imme­di­ate­ly said “poi­son­ing.” Were there oth­er expla­na­tions for his ill­ness.

A Naval­ny has had a his­to­ry of med­ical con­di­tions known to reflect the sud­den reduc­tion in blood sug­ar and cholinesterase lev­els – dia­betes and aller­gies lead­ing to ana­phy­lac­tic shock. This infor­ma­tion, which had been report­ed in Rus­sia and by Naval­ny sources well before the Tom­sk inci­dent, was not make pub­lic after his arrival in Ger­many. Accord­ing to IntelliNews, a busi­ness web­site pub­lished in Berlin, “Naval­ny said him­self that he suf­fered from dia­betes in 2019.”

Q Who invent­ed the claims that Russ­ian intel­li­gence agents had poi­soned Naval­ny?

That was Belling­cat, the US/UK/EU fund­ed orga­ni­za­tion which writes arti­cles that sup­port their lines against their tar­get­ed adver­saries. It was picked up by CNN and became the essence of the film.

Let’s get to the fab­ri­ca­tions at the heart of the film. There’s a long sec­tion about how Chris­to Grozev, iden­ti­fied as work­ing for Belling­cat, buys trav­el and con­tact data on the Dark­net to find the names and phone num­bers of Fed­er­al Secu­ri­ty Ser­vice (FSB) agents who had been trav­el­ing on planes to Siberia in August of 2020. There is no way to ver­i­fy that the charts and faces sub­stan­ti­ate what Grozev and Belling­cat say they prove.In fact, CNN report­ed Decem­ber 14, 2020, “CNN can­not con­firm with cer­tain­ty that it was the unit based at Akademi­ka Var­gi Street that (they say) poi­soned Naval­ny with Novi­chok on the night of August 19.”

So that is already proved a fake charge.

Q What about the Great Phone Call Hoax?

A The real test of the verac­i­ty of the film, the “smok­ing gun” to which every­thing is lead­ing, is the great tele­phone call hoax. 

Those who made the film have under­stood the psy­chol­o­gy of manip­u­lat­ing audi­ences. Slow­ly you bring them into a secret scam to be played on the bad guys. In this one, it starts with Naval­ny putting on a body mike. Why? He is not going some­where to secret­ly record some­one. Only his own team is in the room. The real record­ing micro­phone is off cam­era, where the film audi­ence can’t see it. 

But the body mike is a spe­cial effect, it’s a dramatist’s stage trick. My arti­cle links to the clip. Naval­ny speaks to the cam­era: “Now I’m total­ly feel like I’m an under­cov­er agent, with the wired up.” Does the audi­ence know they are the butt of a the­atri­cal joke?

Q who does he call?

A First Naval­ny alleged­ly calls three “FSB” agents. He says to each of them, “I am Naval­ny; why do, you want to kill me?” And the fake peo­ple hang up. The voic­es are not real, they sound the same – either com­put­er gen­er­at­ed or act­ed by a pro­fes­sion­al mim­ic. What is the point of that? To get the audi­ence in on the game.

But then there’s his famous call to the secu­ri­ty ser­vices sci­en­tist.

Naval­ny declares (as trans­lat­ed), “Kon­stan­tin Boriso­vich, hel­lo my name is Usti­nov Max­im Sergeye­vich. I am Niko­lay Platonovich’s assis­tant.” He says, “I need ten min­utes of your time …will prob­a­bly ask you lat­er for a report …but I am now mak­ing a report for Niko­lay Platonovich … what went wrong with us in Tomsk…why did the Naval­ny oper­a­tion fail?”

Accord­ing to Belling­cat, (the real) Kudryavt­sev worked at the Min­istry of Defense bio­log­i­cal secu­ri­ty research cen­ter and is a spe­cial­ist in chem­i­cal and bio­log­i­cal weapons. Sup­pos­ed­ly not  stu­pid.

The talk­a­tive “Kon­stan­tin” says, “I would rate the job as well done. We did it just as planned, the way we rehearsed it many times. But when the flight made an emer­gency land­ing the sit­u­a­tion changed, not in our favor….The medics on the ground act­ed right away. They inject­ed him with an anti­dote of some sort. So, it seems the dose was under­es­ti­mat­ed. Our cal­cu­la­tions were good, we even applied extra.”

Q Is there evi­dence such a call nev­er took place.

A Pret­ty strong evi­dence Naval­ny was ques­tioned by the Berlin Staat­san­waltschaft (Dis­trict Attor­ney) on Decem­ber 17, 2020. Did he tell them about the phone call to Kon­stan­tin Kudryavt­sev, which alleged­ly took place 3 days ear­li­er on Decem­ber 14?

The office con­firmed by email that it inter­ro­gat­ed Naval­ny. But when I sent a link to Navalny’s claims about the Decem­ber 14th “call” 3 days before and asked if he had told them about it,  spokesman said they could not com­ment fur­ther.

Q what else sug­gests the film is a fake. You wrote about Novi­chok and con­flict­ing dates and tim­ing.

A First about the “poi­son­ing.”

Yulia Naval­naya says in the film, “After a week I was unex­pect­ed­ly called to the Min­istry of For­eign Affairs.” As the Naval­ny group arrived August 22, that would have been about August 29th. “They said we have dis­cov­ered that your hus­band was poi­soned with an agent from the Novi­chok group.” 

But it was not the Char­ité lab that found this. The Ger­man Gov­ern­ment announced not one week but two weeks after the group’s arrival that a lab­o­ra­to­ry of the Ger­man Armed Forces had iden­ti­fied a nerve agent from the Novi­chok group in blood sam­ples col­lect­ed after the patient’s admis­sion to Char­ité.

Unlike the civil­ian doc­tors, who had not found Novi­chok, the mil­i­tary lab would not release details of its tests. There was no tox­i­col­o­gy report, no name of the expert in charge of the test­ing and of the inter­pre­ta­tion of the results, no name and for­mu­la of the chem­i­cal com­pound of the “Novi­chok group.” The Ger­mans refused to send any med­ical or tox­i­co­log­i­cal evi­dence they claimed to sub­stan­ti­ate the attempt­ed homi­cide to Moscow pros­e­cu­tors inves­ti­gat­ing the crime. From then on, with­out evi­dence, the sto­ry became the West’s “Putin poi­soned Naval­ny.”

Sec­ond, the sto­ry kept chang­ing. First poi­son in poi­son in a tea cup at the air­port café, then a water bot­tle in his hotel room, then under­pants. In what form – pow­der, aerosolized spray, or gel? Was the FSB count­ing on Naval­ny not to notice or feel mois­ture as he dressed? 

On the plane, Naval­ny fell ill, and the pilot divert­ed to Omsk, where he was trans­ferred to a hos­pi­tal. The cal­cu­lat­ed lethal­i­ty of the dose should have been fatal after symp­tom onset. How­ev­er, the first symp­toms appeared only after sev­er­al hours, and they remained non-lethal.

Q And what about the under­pants?

A that gets to Kudryavt­sev, who Naval­ny alleged­ly phoned.

CNN declares that “Kudryavt­sev” flies from Moscow to Omsk on August 25, five days after the event, to take pos­ses­sion of Navalny’s clothes and “clean” them. But the FSB would have known of the diver­sion to Omsk August 20th. Would it have wait­ed five days to send an agent there?

Were the under­pants still con­sid­ered dan­ger­ous? Did hos­pi­tal work­ers who undressed Naval­ny get sick? Many peo­ple were exposed to Naval­ny and his dead­ly under­pants, but not one has been report­ed to have fall­en ill. The pas­sen­gers who attend­ed him in the plane and who flew on to Moscow have not report­ed med­ical prob­lems.

The film “Kudryavt­sev” voice says, “When we arrived [in Omsk], they gave [the under­pants] to us, the local Omsk guys brought [them] with the police.” Did any police fall ill?

“Kudryavstev” says, “When we fin­ished work­ing on them every­thing was clean.” He explains that solu­tions were applied, “so that there were no traces left on the clothes. Naval­ny is shown in Berlin hold­ing the under­pants. Did the Omsk police ship the “decon­t­a­m­i­nat­ed” item to Ger­many?

But there is con­flict­ing infor­ma­tion about whether Navalny’s under­pants remained in Omsk.

Navalny’s press sec­re­tary Kira Yarmysh post­ed a tweet August 20, 2020 with the text: “Julia took Alexei’s things with her. She said that she did not allow them to be con­fis­cat­ed.” How­ev­er, The Guardian report­ed Sep­tem­ber 21 that Naval­ny “demand­ed that Moscow return his clothes.” At any rate, the Char­ité Hos­pi­tal said it did not test the water bot­tles or cloth­ing.

Q This alleged poi­son­ing took place August 20th. The phone call was Decem­ber 14th. Is there a prob­lem with that?

A of course there is. Most impor­tant is the date of the phone call.

Ronald Thomas West, who iden­ti­fies as a U.S. Spe­cial Forces vet­er­an work­ing in Europe, writes,

West says, “ The poi­son­ing hap­pened on 20 August, the ‘hoax call’ is made on 14 Decem­ber, and released by Belling­cat on 21 Decem­ber. Now, wait a minute. The con­text of the call, a des­per­ate demand for answers of what went wrong (Naval­ny didn’t die) for a report to high­er up author­i­ty, is some­thing you would expect with­in the first 48 hours, not near­ly three months lat­er. By the time this call was made, that dust should have set­tled and been vac­u­umed up by Russia’s intel­li­gence ser­vices, every­one would have been debriefed by this time, includ­ing the tar­get of the hoax call.”

This part can be cut out for time

The Tro­jan Horse

Maya Daisy Hawke, the film’s co-edi­tor, makes an unusu­al admis­sion on her web­site. She said “It’s the best thing I ever worked on; the high­light of my career,” and adds, “Naval­ny was a Tro­jan horse.” I emailed her and asked what she meant, point­ing out that Mer­ri­am-Web­ster defines tro­jan horse as “some­one or some­thing intend­ed to defeat or sub­vert from with­in usu­al­ly by decep­tive means.” She walked it back and said, “They were hasti­ly cho­sen words on a per­son­al social media post.” She declined fur­ther com­ment.

This part can be cut for time

The film sup­ports an analy­sis of the Russ­ian pub­lic that is fal­la­cious.

An uniden­ti­fied woman says, “What to do with Naval­ny presents a conun­drum for the Krem­lin, let him go and risk look­ing weak, or lock him up, know­ing it could turn him into a polit­i­cal mar­tyr.” A U.S. broad­cast reporter says, “Unex­pect­ed­ly, Vladimir Putin has a gen­uine chal­lenger. More than any oth­er oppo­si­tion fig­ure in Rus­sia, Alex­ei Naval­ny gets ordi­nary peo­ple out to protest.”

How­ev­er, Eric Kraus, a French finan­cial strate­gist work­ing in Moscow since 1997, explains, “Mr. Naval­ny was always a minor fac­tor in Rus­sia. He had a hard-core sup­port­er base — West­ern-aspir­ing young peo­ple in Moscow and St. Peters­burg — the ‘Face­book Gen­er­a­tion.’ He was nev­er much loved out in the sticks and could nev­er have polled beyond 7% nation­wide, even before the war. Ordi­nary Rus­sians now increas­ing­ly see the West as the ene­my. Naval­ny is seen as the agent of forces seek­ing to break or con­strain Rus­sia. Now, he would get clos­er to 2%.”

Kraus said, “He is the supreme polit­i­cal oppor­tunist. In Moscow, speak­ing in Eng­lish to an audi­ence of West­ern fund man­agers and jour­nal­ists, it is the squeaky clean, lib­er­al Naval­ny. Full of free mar­kets, diver­si­ty, and social jus­tice. Hear­ing him a few months lat­er out in Siberia, speak­ing in Russ­ian, one encoun­ters an entire­ly dif­fer­ent ani­mal – fierce­ly nation­al­is­tic, angry and some­what racist – there, his slo­gan is “kick out the thieves” but espe­cial­ly “Rus­sia for the eth­nic Rus­sians,” any­one with­out Slav­ic blood, espe­cial­ly immi­grants from the Cau­cus­es, are sec­ond-class cit­i­zens.”

This can be cut for time

Q You had a chance to go face to face with the film­mak­ers. What hap­pened?

As a mem­ber of the Coun­cil on For­eign Rela­tions, I was invit­ed to a Novem­ber 9, 2022 “Naval­ny” screen­ing by CNN at 30 Hud­son Yards in Man­hat­tan.

In the talk-back, I asked a ques­tion. “My name is Lucy Komis­ar, and I’m an inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist. I want to delve more into the Kudryavt­sev sto­ry. Mr. Naval­ny was ques­tioned by the pros­e­cu­tor in Berlin on Decem­ber 17th. And three days ear­li­er was the phone call with Kudryavt­sev. Did he tell the pros­e­cu­tor about the phone call which I assume they would have to check the authen­tic­i­ty of, and what did they deter­mine about him? He claims on the phone call he exam­ined these things on August 25 …. But on August 20 ….” [In fact,“Kudryavtsev” didn’t give the August 25th date, Belling­cat did.]

LK: “[And]  the press sec­re­tary said Alexei’s things were tak­en by Yulia before that, and she didn’t allow them to be seized. So how could they have been exam­ined by this man after they were already tak­en away? And final­ly, the Berlin doc­tor said they didn’t detect any poi­son­ing in Navalny’s blood, but two weeks lat­er it was the Ger­man Armed Forces lab­o­ra­to­ry that said, yes[it did]

So, all these things I think are con­tra­dic­to­ry and I would like to know the facts of why these con­tra­dic­tions exist.”

Chris­to Grozev: replied: “Almost none of this was actu­al­ly cor­rect and includ­ing the sequence of events. I mean this was reac­tive and FSB offi­cer on screen on record­ing that I made on my phone con­fess­ing to all of that.”

I said: “You said it’s him, but we don’t know it’s him.”

Grozev: “Well, I think the rest of the world knows and now okay. Be nice to know who you work for because….”

It was a Joe McCarthy ques­tion”

I went to the post-film recep­tion and asked Roher if I could inter­view him. He screamed at me, Noooo! And accused me of work­ing for the Rus­sians.

I don’t think the Coun­cil on For­eign Rela­tions part belongs. By now it’s already too long. And it’s a diver­sion.

And the win­ner is.....envelope to the deep state and its asset Belling­cat, with a shout out to Vic­to­ria Nuland and her acolyte Antony Blinken, plus the main­stream and soi-dis­ant inde­pen­dent media for turn­ing a blind eye to the film’s fab­ri­ca­tions.

This film, feed­ing Rus­so­pho­bia, primes Amer­i­cans to sup­port Washington’s proxy war against Rus­sia in Ukraine even with the dan­ger of nuclear anni­hi­la­tion. That gold­en Oscar should be draped in black.

Discussion

2 comments for “FTR#1299 Interview with Lucy Komisar About “Navalny””

  1. Regard­ing Lucy Komis­ar’s inves­ti­ga­tion into the alleged Novi­chok poi­son­ing of Alex­ei Naval­ny and all of the evi­dence point­ing towards a hoax (or a gross­ly mis­di­ag­nosed dia­betes com­pli­ca­tion), it’s worth not­ing anoth­er high­ly anom­alous detail we were giv­en in all the cov­er­age of Naval­ny’s poi­son­ing: the whole poi­son­ing expe­ri­ence was appar­ent­ly pain-free. That’s lit­er­al­ly what Naval­ny told reporters. Instead, as the poi­son took effect, he felt cold shiv­ers ini­tial­ly and no pain, “but it felt like the end”. As he put it, “It does­n’t hurt at all, it’s not like a pan­ic attack or some sort of upset. At the begin­ning you know some­thing is wrong, and then real­ly your only thought is: that’s it, I’m going to die.” Instead, the most neg­a­tive symp­tom Naval­ny reports expe­ri­enc­ing was pow­er­ful hal­lu­ci­na­tions lat­er on in the hos­pi­tal where he thought his legs were going to be ampu­tat­ed. Beyond that, Naval­ny was report­ing dif­fi­cul­ty sleep­ing but oth­er­wise a quick recov­ery.

    So is this ultra pow­er­ful nerve agent some­how pain free? Not accord­ing to the researchers actu­al­ly famil­iar with Novi­chok’s effects. In fact, accord­ing to exiled Sovi­et chem­i­cal weapons expert Vil Mirza­yanov, even small amounts of Novi­chok can induce extreme tor­tur­ous pain that lasts for weeks. In one case recount­ed by Mirza­yanov, a Sovi­et researcher exposed to Novi­chock did indeed expe­ri­ence hal­lu­ci­na­tions while in the hos­pi­tal. And yet that researcher was left with per­ma­nent injuries after being crit­i­cal­ly ill for ten days and unable to walk for six months. A rather dif­fer­ent symp­tom pro­file from what Naval­ny was report­ing.

    So what are the odds that Alex­ei Naval­ny had a pain-free Novi­chok poi­son­ing expe­ri­ence? It’s a pret­ty glar­ing ques­tion in this sto­ry:

    BBC

    Naval­ny poi­son­ing: Krem­lin crit­ic recalls near-death Novi­chok tor­ment

    Pub­lished
    7 Octo­ber 2020

    By Andrey Kozenko
    BBC Russ­ian

    The poi­soned Russ­ian oppo­si­tion leader Alex­ei Naval­ny says recov­er­ing from nerve agent is a long haul, with sleep­less nights and clum­sy move­ments.

    But he told BBC Russ­ian that “I’m doing much, much bet­ter” and insist­ed that even­tu­al­ly he would go back to Rus­sia.

    The BBC met him at a tight­ly-guard­ed Berlin hotel, after he spent 32 days in Berlin’s Char­ité Hos­pi­tal, most­ly in inten­sive care.

    He felt cold shiv­ers ini­tial­ly and no pain, “but it felt like the end”.

    It does­n’t hurt at all, it’s not like a pan­ic attack or some sort of upset. At the begin­ning you know some­thing is wrong, and then real­ly your only thought is: that’s it, I’m going to die.”

    He col­lapsed on a flight from Tom­sk in Siberia to Moscow on 20 August, and only sur­vived because the plane made an emer­gency land­ing in Omsk, where he was rushed to inten­sive care.

    Lat­er, after top-lev­el nego­ti­a­tions with the Russ­ian author­i­ties, he was air­lift­ed to Berlin and treat­ed there while being kept in a med­ical­ly induced coma.

    Novi­chok con­firmed

    The inter-gov­ern­men­tal Organ­i­sa­tion for the Pro­hi­bi­tion of Chem­i­cal Weapons (OPCW) has con­firmed that Mr Naval­ny, 44, was poi­soned with a Novi­chok-type nerve agent.

    In a state­ment, it point­ed to the sim­i­lar­i­ties between traces found in his urine and blood sam­ples and chem­i­cal weapons on the banned list.

    Ger­many says French and Swedish lab­o­ra­to­ries also agreed with its sci­en­tists that Mr Naval­ny was “beyond doubt” poi­soned with a nerve agent.

    Novi­chok agents, devel­oped by Sovi­et sci­en­tists dur­ing the Cold War, are extreme­ly tox­ic — a tiny amount can kill.

    Last week, in his first video inter­view since leav­ing hos­pi­tal in late Sep­tem­ber, Mr Naval­ny said he believed the Russ­ian author­i­ties poi­soned him to remove the threat he posed to their dom­i­nance in next year’s par­lia­men­tary elec­tions.

    The Russ­ian gov­ern­ment has denied any involve­ment in his poi­son­ing. Russ­ian doc­tors who treat­ed Mr Naval­ny said they found no poi­son.

    “I assert that [Pres­i­dent Vladimir] Putin is behind this act, I don’t see any oth­er expla­na­tion,” he told Ger­man news mag­a­zine Der Spiegel last week.

    He fell ill after cam­paign­ing in Siberia to get fel­low anti-cor­rup­tion cam­paign­ers elect­ed to local coun­cils.

    ...

    Hal­lu­ci­na­tions

    He told the BBC that on the plane, as the poi­son took effect, he felt unable to focus on any­thing, though peo­ple and objects around him were not sway­ing or blurred in the way that alco­hol affects the brain.

    Much lat­er in hos­pi­tal “there were sev­er­al phas­es of reawak­en­ing, and that was the most hell­ish peri­od”.

    “For a long time I had hal­lu­ci­na­tions,” he said. He believed his wife Yulia, doc­tors and his fel­low activist Leonid Volkov were telling him he had been in an acci­dent, he had lost his legs, “the sur­geon was going to give me new legs and a new spine”.

    He was con­vinced that this was “total­ly real” and he was “tor­ment­ed by hal­lu­ci­na­tions at night”.

    “My main prob­lem is sleep­ing. I’ve lost the sleep­ing habit, and I find it dif­fi­cult with­out sleep­ing pills. I nev­er used to have that prob­lem.

    “I also have tremors in my hands, they’re unpre­dictable.” He said he was hav­ing fre­quent med­ical checks, includ­ing cog­ni­tive tests, and “phys­i­cal­ly I’m recov­er­ing quite quick­ly”.

    “Some­times I feel sort of spaced out, I go for walks twice dai­ly, and can walk for quite some time. For me the hard­est part is get­ting in and out of the car.”

    He expressed relief that he was not in any pain, but frus­tra­tion that even a sim­ple thing like throw­ing a lit­tle ball “feels like shot-putting” in ath­let­ics.

    ———-

    “Naval­ny poi­son­ing: Krem­lin crit­ic recalls near-death Novi­chok tor­ment” By Andrey Kozenko; BBC; 10/07/2020

    “He felt cold shiv­ers ini­tial­ly and no pain, “but it felt like the end”.”

    It felt like “the end”. But an end with­out pain appar­ent­ly. At least that’s how Alex­ei Naval­ny described his expe­ri­ence to the BBC. And it’s not like he only described not feel­ing pain at first but extreme pain lat­er. At no point in this inter­view is Naval­ny describ­ing any pain at all. Instead, the “mst hell­ish peri­od” were the hal­lu­ci­na­tions he expe­ri­enced much lat­er in the hos­pi­tal when he thought his legs were going to be removed. Along with sleep issues. And he’s was also recov­er­ing quite quick­ly:

    ...
    It does­n’t hurt at all, it’s not like a pan­ic attack or some sort of upset. At the begin­ning you know some­thing is wrong, and then real­ly your only thought is: that’s it, I’m going to die.”

    He col­lapsed on a flight from Tom­sk in Siberia to Moscow on 20 August, and only sur­vived because the plane made an emer­gency land­ing in Omsk, where he was rushed to inten­sive care.

    Lat­er, after top-lev­el nego­ti­a­tions with the Russ­ian author­i­ties, he was air­lift­ed to Berlin and treat­ed there while being kept in a med­ical­ly induced coma.

    ...

    He told the BBC that on the plane, as the poi­son took effect, he felt unable to focus on any­thing, though peo­ple and objects around him were not sway­ing or blurred in the way that alco­hol affects the brain.

    Much lat­er in hos­pi­tal “there were sev­er­al phas­es of reawak­en­ing, and that was the most hell­ish peri­od”.

    “For a long time I had hal­lu­ci­na­tions,” he said. He believed his wife Yulia, doc­tors and his fel­low activist Leonid Volkov were telling him he had been in an acci­dent, he had lost his legs, “the sur­geon was going to give me new legs and a new spine”.

    He was con­vinced that this was “total­ly real” and he was “tor­ment­ed by hal­lu­ci­na­tions at night”.

    My main prob­lem is sleep­ing. I’ve lost the sleep­ing habit, and I find it dif­fi­cult with­out sleep­ing pills. I nev­er used to have that prob­lem.

    “I also have tremors in my hands, they’re unpre­dictable.” He said he was hav­ing fre­quent med­ical checks, includ­ing cog­ni­tive tests, and “phys­i­cal­ly I’m recov­er­ing quite quick­ly”.
    ...

    No pain, hal­lu­ci­na­tions, dif­fi­cul­ty sleep­ing, and a quick recov­ery. That was the update we got about a month of the inci­dent. So how do those symp­toms square with the known effects of Novi­chok? Well, hal­lu­ci­na­tions have been report­ed. But so has extreme pain, even as small dos­es, and very long recov­ery peri­ods. At least that’s the descrip­tion we got from Vil Mirza­yanov, an exiled for­mer Sovi­et-era chem­i­cal war­fare researcher who worked on Novi­chok’s devel­op­ment. As Mirza­yanov describes it, even low dos­es can induce tor­tur­ous pain that will last for weeks:

    The Dai­ly Mail

    ‘It’s tor­ture. You can­not imag­ine the hor­ror’: Sci­en­tist who helped cre­ate the lethal nerve agent Novi­chok used to attack Russ­ian spy in Sal­is­bury reveals its ter­ri­fy­ing effects

    * Vil Mirza­yanov described use of tox­ins in what he called a ‘brazen Putin attack’
    * Exiled sci­en­tist shocked world in 1992 by leak­ing Sovi­et Union nuclear secrets
    * He worked in top-secret Moscow lab and worked on Novi­chok, or ‘new­com­er’
    * It was designed to paral­yse tar­gets and, ulti­mate­ly, stop them from breath­ing
    * Even if dose isn’t enough to kill them, the pain they suf­fer will last for weeks
    * Krem­lin went into denial today and said claims part of anti-Russ­ian con­spir­a­cy

    By Chris Green­wood and Daniel Bates For The Dai­ly Mail

    Pub­lished: 19:01 EDT, 12 March 2018 | Updat­ed: 07:32 EDT, 13 March 2018

    The Russ­ian whistle­blow­er who exposed the coun­try’s secret chem­i­cal weapons pro­gramme has revealed the hor­rif­ic tor­tur­ous effect of the Novi­chok nerve agents on their vic­tims.

    Vil Mirza­yanov described the use of the lethal tox­ins as a ‘brazen’ attack by Vladimir Putin, who ‘thinks he can use every­thing to kill ene­mies’.

    Mr Mirza­yanov says a large dose of Novi­chok ‘paral­y­ses’ vic­tims before ‘it caus­es con­vul­sions, you can’t breathe and after that you die’.

    The exiled sci­en­tist shocked the world in 1992 when he revealed that promis­es by the Sovi­et Union to reduce its chem­i­cal weapon stock­piles were hol­low.

    He worked in the top-secret Moscow lab­o­ra­to­ry where a new gen­er­a­tion of even more potent poi­sons was being per­fect­ed.

    These grue­some chem­i­cal weapons, named ‘Novi­chok’ after the Russ­ian for ‘new­com­er’, were designed to be even more lethal than VX or sarin.

    At the time, one for­mer top Sovi­et mil­i­tary advis­er described them as ‘polit­i­cal weapons’, adding: ‘They have a pow­er­ful moral and psy­cho­log­i­cal effect.’

    Shock­ing­ly, they can be cre­at­ed from com­mon, unre­strict­ed and unde­tectable indus­tri­al and agri­cul­tur­al chem­i­cals avail­able world­wide.

    As a result, weapons inspec­tors fear oth­er rogue nations, includ­ing Syr­ia and North Korea, could have their own lethal stock­piles of the pow­er­ful nerve agents.

    Speak­ing from his home in New Jer­sey last night, Mr Mirza­yanov, 83, described the top-secret lab­o­ra­to­ry as a ‘crim­i­nal enter­prise’.

    ‘It’s a brazen attack,’ he said. ‘Putin thinks he can use every­thing to kill ene­mies. They don’t tol­er­ate any oppo­nents.

    ‘They should be pun­ished. It’s an open demon­stra­tion of this Russ­ian ter­ror­ism.

    ‘The Russ­ian gov­ern­ment is telling peo­ple who are think­ing about reveal­ing more secrets that they can expect the same fate.’

    Asked how the nerve agent works, he added: ‘It’s for paralysing peo­ple, it caus­es you con­vul­sions and you can’t breathe and after that you die. If you get enough of a dose of it.

    ‘It’s real tor­ture, it’s impos­si­ble to imag­ine. Even in low dos­es the pain can go on for weeks. You can­not imag­ine the hor­ror, it’s so bad.’

    The Novi­chok fam­i­ly of nerve agents were secret­ly devel­oped over two decades at a research facil­i­ty 50 miles out­side the Russ­ian cap­i­tal.

    Many times more potent than oth­er bet­ter known chem­i­cal weapons, Novi­chok agents can ren­der gas masks and pro­tec­tive equip­ment use­less.

    Some­times described as ‘gas­es’ they are in fact liq­uid, intend­ed to be deliv­ered as a fine spray.

    A series of poi­sons, known as Novi­chok 5, 7, 8 and 9 to iden­ti­fy them, were pro­duced amid con­di­tions of com­plete secre­cy.

    They all kill the same way. By inhibit­ing enzymes that con­trol nerve recep­tors in the brain.

    One expert said vic­tims sim­ply ‘for­get to breathe’. A tiny drop, almost unde­tectable, placed on the skin or inhaled can cause death with­in min­utes.

    Describ­ing his work, Mr Mirza­yanov said: ‘They were nor­mal lab­o­ra­to­ries, they were not under­ground or any­thing. They were test­ing and devel­op­ing.

    ‘There were around 1,000 peo­ple work­ing on this, it was a big deal. You have to test it on ani­mals and after that you have to study the chem­i­cal prop­er­ties... so many lab­o­ra­to­ries were involved.’

    In 1987, one physi­cist at the lab­o­ra­to­ry was saved despite being exposed to the chem­i­cal when a ven­ti­la­tor stopped work­ing. Wit­ness­es described how he stag­gered out of the room, describ­ing see­ing bright hal­lu­ci­na­tions before col­laps­ing and being rushed to hos­pi­tal by the KGB. He was left with per­ma­nent injuries after being crit­i­cal­ly ill for ten days and unable to walk for six months.

    Last night experts described nerve agents such as Novi­chok as sec­ond only to the ‘atom bomb’ as the most dead­ly weapons ever made. They said that because the ingre­di­ents were so com­mon, the poi­son was ide­al for use in an assas­si­na­tion, as well as a weapon of mass destruc­tion.

    Phar­ma­col­o­gy expert Pro­fes­sor Gary Stephens said: ‘This is a more dan­ger­ous and sophis­ti­cat­ed agent than sarin or VX and is hard­er to iden­ti­fy. It caus­es a slow­ing of the heart and restric­tion of the air­ways, lead­ing to death by asphyx­i­a­tion.

    ‘One of the main rea­sons these agents are devel­oped is because their com­po­nent parts are not on the banned list. It means the chem­i­cals that are mixed to cre­ate it are much eas­i­er to deliv­er with no risk to the health of the couri­er.’

    Pro­fes­sor Robert Stock­man, of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Not­ting­ham, said traces of nerve agents did not linger. He added: ‘These agents react with water to degrade, includ­ing mois­ture in the air, and so in the UK they would have a very lim­it­ed life­time. This is pre­sum­ably why the street in Sal­is­bury was being hosed down as a pre­cau­tion – it would effec­tive­ly destroy the agent.’

    Rus­sia went into denial ear­ly today, with a for­mer FSB chief claim­ing sci­en­tists at Por­ton Down had poi­soned ex-spy Sergei Skri­pal and his daugh­ter Yulia.

    A top Moscow chem­i­cal weapons expert echoed the charge while also alleg­ing nerve agent novi­chok did not exist.

    Moscow was scram­bling today to respond to There­sa May’s demand for an expla­na­tion for the Sal­is­bury attack by mid­night.

    In an extra­or­di­nary blast, Vladimir Putin’s pre­de­ces­sor as FSB secret ser­vice chief Niko­lay Kova­ly­ov claimed Por­ton Down gov­ern­ment lab­o­ra­to­ry — which iden­ti­fied Russ­ian-made novi­chok as the agent that poi­soned the Skri­pals — was like­ly to have been behind the attack.

    ‘There is a lab­o­ra­to­ry (near Sal­is­bury), which is famous all over the world,’ he dis­mis­sive­ly told Britain.

    ‘Check if any­thing leaked from there.’

    Mean­while, chem­i­cal weapons sci­en­tist Dr Anton Utkin — a for­mer UN inspec­tor in Iraq — denied the exis­tence of novi­chok, and echoed the claim that Britain maybe respon­si­ble for the poi­son­ing.

    He led the destruc­tion of chem­i­cal weapons in Rus­sia.

    ‘I was deal­ing with elim­i­na­tion of Russ­ian chem­i­cal weapons and with all the respon­si­bil­i­ty I can say that we have nev­er had a weapon under this name,’ he said.

    Actu­al­ly, it is very strange that British experts have found out the for­mu­la of this ‘super secret’ poi­son nobody knows about.

    ‘It is not clear either how they man­aged to deter­mine that it was pro­duced in Rus­sia.

    ‘If you know the tech­nol­o­gy, it is not pos­si­ble to find out who made a chem­i­cal weapon – if the method is the same, the for­mu­las of the sub­stances will be iden­ti­cal.

    ‘So this news only pro­vokes more ques­tions.’

    Utkin said the West had ear­li­er made a ‘tox­ic noise’ about Rus­si­a’s alleged use of chem­i­cal weapons in Syr­ia.

    ‘And now right in the heart of Great Britain this trai­tor is killed with a neu­ropar­a­lyt­ic sub­stance.

    ‘All this hap­pens at a very con­ve­nient time – before the Russ­ian pres­i­den­tial elec­tion and World Cup.

    ‘If I were British, I would not blame Rus­sians but check my own secu­ri­ty sys­tems first.

    ‘Some­thing strange is hap­pen­ing there – it is not the first time when crim­i­nals are walk­ing around the coun­try with high­ly tox­ic and radioac­tive sub­stances and the secret ser­vices have no idea about it.’

    Dr Utkin has worked for the State Sci­en­tif­ic Research Insti­tute of Organ­ic Chem­istry and Tech­nol­o­gy which is sus­pect­ed of being behind the devel­op­ment of novichik start­ing in 1973.

    Kova­ly­ov, now an MP, said the accu­sa­tions by May were a ‘provo­ca­tion’ against Rus­sia.

    There was no sense for Rus­sia seek to kill a spy con­vict­ed 12 years ago when the pub­lic­i­ty would dam­age the cam­paign for the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, he said.

    ‘Just be log­i­cal. There is no log­ic here,’ he said.

    ...

    ———-

    “ ‘It’s tor­ture. You can­not imag­ine the hor­ror’: Sci­en­tist who helped cre­ate the lethal nerve agent Novi­chok used to attack Russ­ian spy in Sal­is­bury reveals its ter­ri­fy­ing effects” By Chris Green­wood and Daniel Bates; The Dai­ly Mail; 03/12/2018

    “ ‘It’s real tor­ture, it’s impos­si­ble to imag­ine. Even in low dos­es the pain can go on for weeks. You can­not imag­ine the hor­ror, it’s so bad.’ ”

    Even at low dos­es the pain can go on for weeks. It’s real tor­ture. That’s the descrip­tion we got from Vil Mirza­yanov, a now-exiled for­mer Sovi­et chem­i­cal war­fare researcher who helped devel­op Novi­chok in the first place. Hal­lu­ci­na­tions are indeed one of the symp­toms Marza­yanov recount­ed a fel­low researcher expe­ri­enced after they were acci­den­tal­ly exposed. And yet in that case, the researcher was left with per­ma­nent injuries and was unable to walk for six months. It’s quite a con­trast to Naval­ny’s rel­a­tive­ly pain­less and rapid recov­ery:

    ...
    Vil Mirza­yanov described the use of the lethal tox­ins as a ‘brazen’ attack by Vladimir Putin, who ‘thinks he can use every­thing to kill ene­mies’.

    Mr Mirza­yanov says a large dose of Novi­chok ‘paral­y­ses’ vic­tims before ‘it caus­es con­vul­sions, you can’t breathe and after that you die’.

    The exiled sci­en­tist shocked the world in 1992 when he revealed that promis­es by the Sovi­et Union to reduce its chem­i­cal weapon stock­piles were hol­low.

    He worked in the top-secret Moscow lab­o­ra­to­ry where a new gen­er­a­tion of even more potent poi­sons was being per­fect­ed.

    ...

    Speak­ing from his home in New Jer­sey last night, Mr Mirza­yanov, 83, described the top-secret lab­o­ra­to­ry as a ‘crim­i­nal enter­prise’.

    ‘It’s a brazen attack,’ he said. ‘Putin thinks he can use every­thing to kill ene­mies. They don’t tol­er­ate any oppo­nents.

    ‘They should be pun­ished. It’s an open demon­stra­tion of this Russ­ian ter­ror­ism.

    ‘The Russ­ian gov­ern­ment is telling peo­ple who are think­ing about reveal­ing more secrets that they can expect the same fate.’

    Asked how the nerve agent works, he added: ‘It’s for paralysing peo­ple, it caus­es you con­vul­sions and you can’t breathe and after that you die. If you get enough of a dose of it.’

    ...

    Describ­ing his work, Mr Mirza­yanov said: ‘They were nor­mal lab­o­ra­to­ries, they were not under­ground or any­thing. They were test­ing and devel­op­ing.

    ‘There were around 1,000 peo­ple work­ing on this, it was a big deal. You have to test it on ani­mals and after that you have to study the chem­i­cal prop­er­ties... so many lab­o­ra­to­ries were involved.’

    In 1987, one physi­cist at the lab­o­ra­to­ry was saved despite being exposed to the chem­i­cal when a ven­ti­la­tor stopped work­ing. Wit­ness­es described how he stag­gered out of the room, describ­ing see­ing bright hal­lu­ci­na­tions before col­laps­ing and being rushed to hos­pi­tal by the KGB. He was left with per­ma­nent injuries after being crit­i­cal­ly ill for ten days and unable to walk for six months.
    ...

    Did Alex­ei Naval­ny get such a tiny dose of Novi­chok that it just some­how did­n’t cre­ate any pain symp­toms at all? Or was there some­thing about the deliv­ery of the tox­in that changed its symp­toms? We have no answers. More impor­tant­ly, we have no indi­ca­tion the these ques­tions were ever real­ly asked at all in this case. At least not pub­licly. Which is a big hint regard­ing the answers.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | May 17, 2023, 2:31 pm
  2. Did Vladimir Putin agree to release Alex­ei Naval­ny as part of a pris­on­er swap, only to order his assas­si­na­tion in a fit of blind rage at the last minute? Yes, accord­ing to Maria Pevchikh, one of Naval­ny’s close allies. Accord­ing to Pevchikh, she received con­fir­ma­tion on Feb­ru­ary 15 that the swap was about to hap­pen, one day before his death. Beyond that, Pevchikh claims these nego­ti­a­tions have been under­way for many months and that, “by the spring of last year our plan was approved.” The pro­posed swap would have entailed the release of Vadim Krasikov, an FSB agent jailed in Ger­many for mur­der­ing a for­mer Chechen com­man­der in 2019, and “two Amer­i­can cit­i­zens,” who are pre­sum­ably jour­nal­ist Evan Ger­shkovich and Paul Whe­lan. Pevchikh also claims Roman Abramovich act­ed as a per­son­al liai­son between West­ern offi­cials and Putin. In oth­er words, Putin was per­son­al­ly involved in the nego­ti­a­tions, and then went mad after approval the deal and had him killed, accord­ing Pevchikh.

    Do we have any oth­er con­fir­ma­tion of Pevchikh’s sto­ry? Sort of. Accord­ing to two unnamed West­ern offi­cials, nego­ti­a­tions over Naval­ny’s release had indeed start­ed. But both stressed that they were nowhere near as advanced as Pevchikh claims and that no for­mal offers had been made. No word yet from Abramovich.

    So it sounds like there real­ly were nego­ti­a­tions over Naval­ny’s release under­way at the time of Naval­ny’s death. But then we have these wild claims by Pevchikh about an immi­nent release that was foiled at the last minute by Putin’s blind rage. How are we to inter­pret these sto­ries? Why would a close ally of Naval­ny’s come out with a sto­ry about Putin going mad that even West­ern offi­cials can’t stand by? What’s the motive here? Is this just ama­teur­ish pro­pa­gan­diz­ing or some­thing else? Either way, it’s a reminder that Alex­ei Naval­ny’s release from prison was some­thing Russ­ian could use as a bar­gain­ing chip with the West, which was some­thing Rus­sia was appar­ent­ly enter­tain­ing accord­ing to the unnamed West­ern offi­cials:

    Politi­co

    Alex­ei Naval­ny was killed on eve of pris­on­er swap, his team claims

    Roman Abramovich helped bro­ker pro­posed exchange for FSB assas­sin before Putin tor­pe­doed the deal, accord­ing to Naval­ny allies.

    By Eva Har­tog
    Feb­ru­ary 26, 2024 12:35 pm CET

    A bomb­shell video by Alex­ei Navalny’s team claims that the Russ­ian oppo­si­tion politi­cian was delib­er­ate­ly killed on Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin’s orders on the eve of a pris­on­er exchange that would have seen him released in return for an FSB assas­sin jailed in Ger­many.

    In a YouTube video pub­lished Mon­day titled “Why did Putin kill Naval­ny now?” the oppo­si­tion politician’s close ally Maria Pevchikh said that after months of lob­by­ing for a pris­on­er swap involv­ing Naval­ny, “by the spring of last year our plan was approved.”

    “Naval­ny was sup­posed to be free in the com­ing days because we had achieved a deci­sion on his exchange,” she said. Pevchikh added that Russ­ian bil­lion­aire oli­garch Roman Abramovich had act­ed as a per­son­al liai­son between West­ern offi­cials and Putin in bro­ker­ing the deal. POLITICO has not been able to inde­pen­dent­ly ver­i­fy Pevchikh’s claims.

    Pevchikh said the deal includ­ed Vadim Krasikov, an FSB agent jailed in Ger­many for mur­der­ing a for­mer Chechen com­man­der in 2019, and “two Amer­i­can cit­i­zens.”

    Pevchikh added she had received con­fir­ma­tion late on Feb. 15 that such a swap was going to take place but believed Putin then changed his mind.

    “Since they are will­ing to exchange Krasikov on prin­ci­ple then I just need to get rid of the bar­gain­ing chip [Naval­ny,],” Pevchikh sur­mised Putin’s think­ing. “Then offer some­one else when the time comes.”

    “It’s absolute­ly illog­i­cal, irra­tional, it’s the behav­ior of a mad mafioso. But the point is that Putin has gone mad with hatred for Naval­ny,” she said.

    ...

    Two West­ern offi­cials acknowl­edged that talks were under­way on a pris­on­er swap, but denied that any for­mal offer had been made.

    On Feb. 16, a day after Pevchikh claims to have received con­fir­ma­tion the deal was “in its final stages,” Naval­ny was report­ed to have col­lapsed and died after a walk in the penal colony where he was being held north of the Arc­tic cir­cle.

    In the video, Pevchikh did not men­tion the names of the two U.S. cit­i­zens, but if such a deal ever exist­ed, it would like­ly have includ­ed the U.S. jour­nal­ist Evan Ger­shkovich and Paul Whe­lan, who have both been jailed in Rus­sia on espi­onage charges wide­ly seen as fab­ri­cat­ed.

    In an inter­view with the U.S. right-wing pun­dit Tuck­er Carl­son ear­li­er this month, Putin said he did not exclude a deal for the release of Wall Street Jour­nal reporter Ger­shkovich “if our part­ners take rec­i­p­ro­cal steps.”

    He then spoke about “a per­son, due to patri­ot­ic sen­ti­ments, [who] elim­i­nat­ed a ban­dit in one of the Euro­pean cap­i­tals,” in a state­ment wide­ly seen as con­fir­ma­tion that Putin want­ed Krasikov to be released in return.

    ———-

    “Alex­ei Naval­ny was killed on eve of pris­on­er swap, his team claims” By Eva Har­tog; Politi­co; 02/26/2024

    “In a YouTube video pub­lished Mon­day titled “Why did Putin kill Naval­ny now?” the oppo­si­tion politician’s close ally Maria Pevchikh said that after months of lob­by­ing for a pris­on­er swap involv­ing Naval­ny, “by the spring of last year our plan was approved.”

    By the spring of 2023, a plan for a pris­on­er swap involv­ing Naval­ny was approved. Those are the claims of close Naval­ny ally Maria Pevchikh, who goes on to assert that Roman Abramovich was act­ing as the per­son­al liai­son between West­ern offi­cials and Putin, imply­ing Putin was direct­ly involved with the nego­ti­a­tions, and that she got con­fir­ma­tion late on Feb­ru­ary 15 that the swap was going to hap­pen and “in its final stages”. And then Putin appar­ent­ly changed his mind and had Naval­ny killed. It was a done deal and then no deal. But Putin was­n’t con­tent with say­ing no to those terms. He killed Naval­ny instead, on the eve of the planned swap. That’s her sto­ry:

    ...
    “Naval­ny was sup­posed to be free in the com­ing days because we had achieved a deci­sion on his exchange,” she said. Pevchikh added that Russ­ian bil­lion­aire oli­garch Roman Abramovich had act­ed as a per­son­al liai­son between West­ern offi­cials and Putin in bro­ker­ing the deal. POLITICO has not been able to inde­pen­dent­ly ver­i­fy Pevchikh’s claims.

    Pevchikh said the deal includ­ed Vadim Krasikov, an FSB agent jailed in Ger­many for mur­der­ing a for­mer Chechen com­man­der in 2019, and “two Amer­i­can cit­i­zens.”

    Pevchikh added she had received con­fir­ma­tion late on Feb. 15 that such a swap was going to take place but believed Putin then changed his mind.

    ...

    On Feb. 16, a day after Pevchikh claims to have received con­fir­ma­tion the deal was “in its final stages,” Naval­ny was report­ed to have col­lapsed and died after a walk in the penal colony where he was being held north of the Arc­tic cir­cle.

    ...

    Two West­ern offi­cials acknowl­edged that talks were under­way on a pris­on­er swap, but denied that any for­mal offer had been made.
    ...

    And what was Putin’s motive to sud­den­ly change his mind after appar­ent­ly agree­ing to a deal that had been worked on for many months and final­ized just the day before? Why did he did it? Well, accord­ing to Pevchikh, “Putin has gone mad with hatred for Naval­ny.” That’s the motive. Blind rage on Putin’s part prompt­ed the last minute assas­si­na­tion. That’s her sto­ry:

    ...
    “Since they are will­ing to exchange Krasikov on prin­ci­ple then I just need to get rid of the bar­gain­ing chip [Naval­ny,],” Pevchikh sur­mised Putin’s think­ing. “Then offer some­one else when the time comes.”

    “It’s absolute­ly illog­i­cal, irra­tional, it’s the behav­ior of a mad mafioso. But the point is that Putin has gone mad with hatred for Naval­ny,” she said.
    ...

    It’s not exact­ly a com­pelling sto­ry. And yet Pevchikh appears to be quite adamant. So is there any­one else back­ing up her sto­ry? Not exact­ly. As the fol­low­ing Politi­co report describes, there are two unnamed West­ern offi­cials who are will­ing to con­firm that nego­ti­a­tions over Naval­ny’s release had indeed been start­ed. But as both cau­tion, no for­mal offers had been made. It was just ear­ly dis­cus­sions and noth­ing like the “con­fir­ma­tion” Pevchikh describes. So while Pevchikh appears to be just mak­ing up a sto­ry about Putin going mad and order­ing Naval­ny’s mur­der after agree­ing to his release, it does appear to be the case that some sort of pris­on­er swap nego­ti­a­tions had been ongo­ing at the time of Naval­ny’s death:

    Politi­co

    No Naval­ny pris­on­er swap was offered to Rus­sia, West­ern offi­cials say

    Two West­ern offi­cials con­firm that dis­cus­sions were hap­pen­ing before the Russ­ian dis­si­dent died, but that noth­ing had been final­ized.

    By Alexan­der Ward
    02/26/2024 02:48 PM EST

    Talks were under­way for a pris­on­er swap for Russ­ian oppo­si­tion leader Alex­ei Naval­ny when he died on Feb. 16, accord­ing to two West­ern offi­cials informed on the dis­cus­sions, but no deal had been offered to the Krem­lin.

    One West­ern offi­cial, asked if there was a pris­on­er deal involv­ing Naval­ny in the works before he died, said “no for­mal offer had been made, but ear­ly dis­cus­sions to that effect were under­way.” The U.S. and Ger­many were in dis­cus­sions about form­ing some kind of deal, the offi­cial con­tin­ued.

    Anoth­er West­ern offi­cial also con­firmed that nego­ti­a­tions were in process, but stressed that not even an infor­mal offer was sent to Moscow.

    An ally of Navalny’s post­ed a video on YouTube Mon­day claim­ing that a pris­on­er swap that would free Naval­ny had been in nego­ti­a­tions for months before his death. Maria Pevchikh fur­ther said that “ by the spring of last year our plan was approved.”

    The offi­cials said that there was no plan so far advanced as Pevchikh claimed.

    Pevchikh said the deal includ­ed Vadim Krasikov, an FSB agent jailed in Ger­many for mur­der­ing a for­mer Chechen com­man­der in 2019, and “two Amer­i­can cit­i­zens.” Pevchikh added she had received con­fir­ma­tion late on Feb. 15 that such a swap was going to take place but believed Putin then changed his mind. The Krem­lin did not imme­di­ate­ly com­ment on the Naval­ny team’s alle­ga­tions.

    ...

    The offi­cials declined to pro­vide fur­ther details on the dis­cus­sions, includ­ing whether Krasikov was part of the talks. The U.S. is focused on secur­ing the release of for­mer Marine Paul Whe­lan and Wall Street Jour­nal reporter Evan Ger­shkovich, both wrong­ful­ly detained in Rus­sia. There’s long been spec­u­la­tion that the U.S would try to con­vince Ger­many to release Krasikov in exchange for the pair.

    It’s pos­si­ble the U.S. may also have asked for Naval­ny to be includ­ed in the exchange for Krasikov. Ger­man gov­ern­ment spokesper­son Chris­tiane Hoff­mann declined to com­ment on the issue at a press brief­ing Mon­day. The Ger­man embassy in Wash­ing­ton also declined to com­ment.

    ...

    ———-

    ” No Naval­ny pris­on­er swap was offered to Rus­sia, West­ern offi­cials say” By Alexan­der Ward; Politi­co; 02/26/2024

    “The offi­cials said that there was no plan so far advanced as Pevchikh claimed.”

    Nego­ti­a­tions were under­way, but noth­ing like what Pevchikh claims. No for­mal offers and cer­tain­ly not any “con­fir­ma­tion” on Feb 15 that a deal was hap­pen­ing. We’re get­ting what sound like pret­ty defin­i­tive refu­ta­tions of Pevchikh’s sto­ry from these unnamed West­ern offi­cials:

    ...
    One West­ern offi­cial, asked if there was a pris­on­er deal involv­ing Naval­ny in the works before he died, said “no for­mal offer had been made, but ear­ly dis­cus­sions to that effect were under­way.” The U.S. and Ger­many were in dis­cus­sions about form­ing some kind of deal, the offi­cial con­tin­ued.

    Anoth­er West­ern offi­cial also con­firmed that nego­ti­a­tions were in process, but stressed that not even an infor­mal offer was sent to Moscow.

    ...

    The offi­cials declined to pro­vide fur­ther details on the dis­cus­sions, includ­ing whether Krasikov was part of the talks. The U.S. is focused on secur­ing the release of for­mer Marine Paul Whe­lan and Wall Street Jour­nal reporter Evan Ger­shkovich, both wrong­ful­ly detained in Rus­sia. There’s long been spec­u­la­tion that the U.S would try to con­vince Ger­many to release Krasikov in exchange for the pair.

    It’s pos­si­ble the U.S. may also have asked for Naval­ny to be includ­ed in the exchange for Krasikov. Ger­man gov­ern­ment spokesper­son Chris­tiane Hoff­mann declined to com­ment on the issue at a press brief­ing Mon­day. The Ger­man embassy in Wash­ing­ton also declined to com­ment.
    ...

    Sure, there’s long been spec­u­la­tion that the US might ask to have Naval­ny includ­ed as part of some sort of three-way pris­on­er swap nego­ti­a­tion with Ger­many and Rus­sia. And based on the state­ments from these unnamed offi­cials it appears the US at least broached the top­ic. Under Pevchikh’s claimed sce­nario, the US asked for Naval­ny to be includ­ed in the swap and secured Rus­si­a’s approval, only to have Putin make a last minute mad­ness-dri­ven assas­si­na­tion order. In oth­er words, an absurd sce­nario.

    But dis­miss­ing Pevchikh’s wild claims, it’s still pret­ty notable that we have two West­ern offi­cials acknowl­edg­ing that some sort of nego­ti­a­tions for Naval­ny’s release were indeed under­way. Would a Russ­ian gov­ern­ment that is plan­ning on bump­ing off Naval­ny even both­er enter­tain­ing the prospect of release? It would be an odd nego­ti­a­tion tac­tic. Which rais­es the inter­est­ing ques­tions as to what’s going to hap­pen with the Krasikov/Ger­shkovich/Whe­lan­for-swap. Are those nego­ti­a­tions still hap­pen­ing? And how will the death of Naval­ny impact those nego­ti­a­tions going for­ward? It’s going to be inter­est­ing to see how this plays out now that Pevchikh has inject­ed this nar­ra­tive into the whole swap nego­ti­a­tion process. It’s hard to see how this isn’t a com­pli­ca­tion.

    Also keep in mind there’s no com­pelling rea­son the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment could­n’t have sim­ply said “no” at the start of these nego­ti­a­tions over Naval­ny. Why engage in all these nego­ti­a­tions only to kill him off? Elab­o­rate trolling? What’s the motive? Oh right, Putin went mad at the last minute.

    It’s a mess of a sto­ry. But at the end, we do appear to have con­fir­ma­tion that Rus­sia was at least sig­nal­ing to West­ern gov­ern­ments that it was open to releas­ing Naval­ny. Which is pre­sum­ably not the news Pevchikh was hop­ing to con­firm with her wild sto­ry. Who knows, maybe she went mad at the last minute.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | February 29, 2024, 5:14 pm

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