Alexei Navalny is the latest demonstration of what happens to a Vladimir Putin Opponent. The Russian opposition activist and staunch critic of Vladimir Putin had been poisoned with a chemical nerve agent known as ‘Novichok’ in an attempt to murder him, German Chancellor Angela Merkel confirmed. “It is now certain that Alexei Navalny was the victim of a crime — he was supposed to be silenced,” Ms Merkel told reporters in Berlin.
This came after samples tested by a specialist military laboratory in Berlin confirmed that the chemical had been used on Mr Navalny. The activist had fallen sick after taking a cup of tea at the airport in Tomsk, he initially received treatment at a nearby city where he was hospitalised for two days but was airlifted to Germany with the help of German-based charity after he fell into a coma.
Is the Russian Government Involved?
Speaking to Financial Times, an intelligence officer said the use of Novichok, a military-grade nerve agent, in the poisoning of Mr Navalny was a strong indicator that it was state-backed.
“Given the history of this nerve agent and how it’s been used, it would be highly surprising if this hadn’t been sanctioned at an extremely senior level,” the officer told the Financial Times.
The Russian ambassador to Germany has been summoned by the German government while Russian continues to deny attempting to murder Navalny.
The Kremlin’s Strategy: Rolling Violence
Alexei Navalny has become Russia’s most prominent critic and has led several protests against the Russian government. He attempted to run for office in 2018 but was banned by authorities who accused him of embezzlement, a crime that stops him from running for office, for life. But this is not the first chemical attack on Navalny. After being arrested during a protest last year, he was diagnosed with “contact dermatitis” after being exposed to “toxic agents” according to his doctors. A similar nerve agent was used against a former Soviet spy and his daughter in Britain in 2018, in an attack that the British government attributed to the Russian state. This method of silencing critics shows what the Russian Government does with forces it cannot control.
What Next for Russia?
Norbert Röttgen, chair of the German parliament’s foreign affairs committee, has demanded a tough EU response in the Navalny case and called for a reconsideration of the gas deal with Russia which could strengthen Putin to ignore Western protestations. “Now, again, we are brutally confronted with the reality of the Putin regime, which treats people with contempt… the question is, are the Europeans always going to end up doing nothing? If so, then we’ll become irrelevant, we won’t be taken seriously” Mr Röttgen told reporters. The German Green party is also pressuring Merkel to bend to Rottgen’s demand and end her support for the joint German-Russian Nord Stream 2 pipeline project. The chancellor who said there would be an “appropriate joint response” by the EU and Nato has not responded to this demand yet.
