“I’m totally sure Putin was aware of that,” Navalny said Tuesday in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.
“The functioning of this ability and for so long cannot exist without a ruling by the head of the Russian Security Service (FSB), Mr. Bortnikov. And it would never have dared without the direct order of President Putin.”
The anti-corruption crusade was reacting to an investigation by the Bellingcat group and joined by CNN, which combined how an FSB unit followed its team during an August trip to Siberia.
The investigation found that two teams of five or six agents were deployed in August 2020 on the Siberian voyage from Navalny, 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 poisoning.
Navalny fell ill while traveling on August 20 during a four-hour flight from Tomsk to Moscow.
The captain of the plane was diverted to the city of Omsk and sought medical help and it was found that the Russian opposition leader had been poisoned by the nerve agent Novichok.
Since then, the European Union has imposed sanctions on several senior officials, including Bortnikov, saying he was “responsible for supporting people who carried out or were involved in Navalny’s poisoning.”
CNN / Bellingcat’s investigation also found that the FSB team had been following Navalny’s team on more than 30 round trips from Moscow since 2017.
“We all understand how [the] sausage was made [now]”, Said Navalny, in reaction to the details revealed.
This is a groundbreaking story, more to follow …