Alexei Navalny/Instagram
- Alexei Navalny, a prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has posted a video of what Navalny says are the poisoned water bottles that were used to try and kill him last month.
- Navalny fell ill on a flight from Tomsk, Siberia, to Moscow on August 20, and was hospitalized. Doctors in Germany have since confirmed that he was poisoned with the Soviet-made Novichok nerve agent.
- It was originally thought that Navalny’s tea was poisoned in Tomsk airport, but on Thursday he posted a video of bottles of water in his Tomsk hotel room that he says were tainted with Novichok.
- “It was on the bottle from Tomsk that the German laboratory found traces of ‘Novichok’ … Now we understand: this was done before he [Navalny] left his room to go to the airport,” the caption said.
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Alexei Navalny, the chief critic of President Vladimir Putin, has posted a video showing what he says are the bottles of water that were used to try and kill him with poison.
On August 20, Navalny fell ill on a flight from Tomsk, Siberia, to Moscow. The plane made an emergency landing in Omsk, Siberia, and Navalny was taken to hospital.
He was kept in a coma for several days by Russian doctors. The hospital initially denied requests to let his family fly him to a foreign hospital for specialist care, though he was later allowed to go to Germany.
At the time, Kira Yarmish, his press secretary, said he had been poisoned at the airport. German doctors who have conducted tests on Navalny since have concluded that he was poisoned with Novichok, a deadly, Soviet-developed nerve agent.
It was initially thought that the poison was placed in his cup of tea at Omsk airport. However, in a video posted to Instagram on Thursday, Navalny showed multiple bottles of water from a room at the Xander hotel in Tomsk that he says were tainted with Novichok.
“It was on the bottle from Tomsk that the German laboratory found traces of ‘Novichok.’ Three more laboratories that took tests from Alexei confirmed that Navalny was poisoned. Now we understand: this was done before he left his room to go to the airport,” the caption read.
In the video, a number of water bottles can be seen around the hotel room, including in the mini fridge and on his bedside table, which have been highlighted with red rings.
“This is a bottle from a room in a Tomsk hotel where Navalny himself and our entire film crew stayed,” the caption said.
The post added that there were “several items” that Navalny could have used in his Tomsk hotel room, including the water.
An investigation into the poisoning by the independent Russian news website Proekt found that after news of Navalny’s poisoning reached his team, who had remained at the hotel in Tomsk, they hurried to save as much information as possible from the room, fearing Russian authorities would soon be at their door.
“Everything was done to save the evidence,” an activist from the Tomsk headquarters of Navalny’s campaign told Proekt.
Reuters
Georgy Alburov, an investigator at Navalny’s foundation, said: “In Russia it will definitely not be investigated.”
Navalny is the leading opposition leader in Russia. He campaigned to run against Putin in 2018 but was barred from running for president. He has regularly been arrested, detained, and jailed for sedition.
In the wake of his poisoning last month pro-Putin Russian media attempted to push a narrative that Navalny was hospitalized after heavy drinking the night before.
Navalny on Tuesday posted a picture of himself on a hospital bed to his Instagram for the first time since he fell ill.
“Hi, this is Navalny,” he wrote.”I miss you. I still can hardly do anything, but yesterday I was able to breathe on my own for the whole day. Just myself. I did not use any outside help, not even the simplest valve in my throat.”
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