On 20 August 2020, Russian opposition leader and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny was poisoned with the Novichok nerve agent and as a result, he was hospitalized in serious condition. During a flight from Tomsk to Moscow, he became ill and was taken to a hospital in Omsk after an emergency landing. He was then put in a coma. He was evacuated to the Charité hospital in Berlin, Germany, two days later. The use of the nerve agent was confirmed by five Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) certified laboratories. On 7 September, doctors announced that they had taken Navalny out of the induced coma and that his condition had improved. He was discharged from the hospital on 22 September 2020. The OPCW said that a cholinesterase inhibitor from the Novichok group was found in Navalny's blood, urine, skin samples and his water bottle. At the same time, the OPCW report clarified that Navalny was poisoned with a new type of Novichok, which was not included in the list of controlled chemicals of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Navalny accused President Vladimir Putin of being responsible for his poisoning, but the Kremlin said the accusations were "utterly unfounded" and "insulting". The Kremlin further alleged that Navalny was working for the CIA. The EU and the UK imposed sanctions over Navalny's poisoning on the director of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Alexander Bortnikov, five other senior Russian officials, and the State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology (GosNIIOKhT). According to the EU, the poisoning of Navalny became possible "only with the consent of the Presidential Executive Office" and with the participation of the FSB. An investigation by Bellingcat and The Insider implicated agents from the FSB in Navalny's poisoning. Russian prosecutors refused to open an official criminal investigation of the poisoning, claiming they found no sign that a crime had been committed, and the Kremlin denied involvement in the poisoning of Navalny.
Background
Alexei Navalny had previously been attacked by chemical substances. On 27 April 2017, Navalny was attacked by unknown assailants outside his office in the Anti-Corruption Foundation who sprayed brilliant green dye, possibly mixed with other components, into his face (see Zelyonka attack). He said he had lost 80 percent of the sight in his right eye. He also said that his doctor believed there was a second corrosive substance in the liquid and that "there is hope" the lost eyesight would be restored. He also alleged that the attacker was Aleksandr Petrunko, a man he claimed had ties with State Duma deputy speaker Pyotr Olegovich Tolstoy. Navalny accused the Kremlin of orchestrating the attack. Another incident occurred in July 2019, when Navalny was arrested and imprisoned. On 28 July, he was hospitalized with severe damage to his eyes and skin. At the hospital, he was diagnosed with an allergic reaction, although this diagnosis was disputed by Anastasia Vasilyeva, one of his personal doctors. Vasilyeva questioned the diagnosis and suggested the possibility that Navalny's condition was the result of "the damaging effects of undetermined chemicals". On 29 July 2019, Navalny was discharged from hospital and taken back to prison, despite the objections of his personal physician who questioned the hospital's motives. In August 2020, in the days leading up to the poisoning, Navalny had been publishing videos on his YouTube channel in which he expressed support for the pro-democracy 2020 Belarusian protests, which were triggered by the heavily contested 2020 Belarusian presidential election. Navalny had also written that the kind of 'revolution' that was taking place in neighboring Belarus would soon happen in Russia. Local news site Tayga.Info reported that during his Siberia trip, Navalny had been carrying out an investigation, as well as meeting local candidates and volunteers. When asked if Navalny were preparing an exposé shortly before he became violently ill, Navalny ally Lyubov Sobol stated "I can't reveal all the details, but Navalny was on a work trip. He wasn't relaxing in the regions". The video investigation was later published by Navalny's team on 31 August. It is assumed that Navalny was poisoned in a politically motivated attack as 'punishment' for his opposition work. According to The New York Times, experts expressed doubts that the Novichok agent would be used by someone other than a state-sponsored agent. Journalist and human rights advocate Anna Politkovskaya, known for her criticism of Putin and her coverage of the Second Chechen War, fell ill during a flight to cover the Beslan school siege in 2004 after drinking tea in an apparent poisoning attempt. She was later assassinated in 2006. In 2018, Pussy Riot activist Pyotr Verzilov was hospitalised in Moscow and later taken to the Charité hospital in Berlin a few days later for treatment which was organised by the Cinema for Peace Foundation after a suspected poisoning, where doctors at the hospital said it was "highly probable" that he was poisoned. According to activist Ilya Chumakov, who met Navalny along with other supporters the day before his flight, when Navalny was asked why he was not dead, he said that his death would not be beneficial to Putin and that it would turn him into a hero.
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