Russian dissident Alexei Navalny did not escape an assassination attempt – he endured a second poisoning while in a coma, a statement said Sunday.
The 44-year-old opposition leader was targeted by agents of the Kremlin, who rushed him to a hospital in the Russian city of Omsk, where he was poisoned with Soviet-era nerve agent on August 20, Western intelligence sources said on Sunday. Times of London.
“It was with the intent that he was dead by the time he arrived in Berlin,” one source said, adding that Navalny was said to have committed the second assassination before being allowed to fly to Germany for treatment.
Navalny may have been saved by the antidote atropine he administered by the ambulance crew who met him when the plane he was traveling on was first returned to Omes, the report said.
“If he had already been‘ atropine-ice ’, it would have resisted the neurotransmitter, but that would have prolonged his coma,” said Alastair Hay, a professor of environmental toxicology at the University of Leeds.
Without it, the previously unknown Novichok’s neurological agent, which has caused “multi-organ dysfunction”, would have to be dropped first before a painful lung death, experts said.
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, former commander of the British Army’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Atomic Energy Regiment, told The Sunday Times that “that atropine saved his life.”
Intelligence sources described the second bout attempt and a new theory of how Navalny first drank poison – by wearing only his underwear.
Retired Russian chemist Vladimir Uklev told the British press that Kremlin agents may have entered Navalny’s hotel room and placed the novice on the waist of his underwear, which would come in contact with his skin.
Russia – which has repeatedly refused to poison Navalny – has refused to hand over his clothes for testing, the report said.
A security official told the UK Press that the agent was “not something you can cook in a kitchen, something you can manage without training.”
“Novichok can only come from one state,” the official stressed.
Sir Sir Richard Barnes, the former commander-in-chief of Britain’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, “Russia is using a painful assassination method to send a clear message -” If you screw up with us, terrible things will happen. “
“It’s more horrific than any other type of massacre – slow death, they like it. They want to see their enemies suffer, which adds to the message,” he stressed.
Another Western intelligence official compared Russia’s leadership to a drug dealer.
“In their cases and relationships, those in government appear to be sophisticated, but this is a frustration for thugs,” the source told The Sunday Times.
Despite the Kremlin’s denials, Nalny has repeatedly accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of poisoning him.
Before he found out he was fighting for his life, Navalny was traveling through Siberia, urging Russians to vote against Putin’s allies in the upcoming local elections.
He publicly denounced Putin as a “jar of corruption” and called the Russian president’s party “traitors and thieves.”