Years before a Russian poison squad nearly killed Alexei Navalny allegedly by planting a Novichok-like nervous agent in his boxer shorts, the same group was honing their skills in other Russian opposition figures, according to a new report by Bellingcat.
The same agents Bellingcat claims to have chased, followed and spied on Navalny for more than three years, also tracked down three other Russian dissidents, including Kremlin critic and journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza, who, like the murdered Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, contributed to THE Washington Post.
Kara-Murza was poisoned twice, both incidents leaving him in a prolonged coma while his vital organs shut down. Like Navalny’s suspected poisoning, Russian authorities refused to investigate the attacks on Kara-Murza, despite international outcry.
According to the Bellingcat report, two Russian hospitals and three independent examinations concluded that Kara-Murza was poisoned by an unidentified substance.
Using travel records, Bellingcat concluded that the same FSB poisoning squad that followed Navalny also appeared where Kara-Murza was for months before his first poisoning in 2015 and followed him again until he was poisoned in 2017. “The number of coincident travel – seven destinations with 14 overlapping flights – makes a coincident overlap statistically implausible, ”according to the Bellingcat report. On at least one occasion, while following the journalist, the team was accompanied by Roman Mezentsev, who headed the FSB’s Directorate for Protection of the Constitution and Combating Terrorism. Bellingcat says Mezentsev was a close ally of Vladislav Surkov, a former Putin adviser known in Kremlin circles as The Gray Cardinal.
At least two members of the same poison squad are reported to have followed Russian anti-corruption activist Nikita Isaev weeks before he died on a train journey from Tambov to Moscow in 2019.
The investigative group says it has focused on the activities of the FSB poisoning squad outside Moscow because the overlap between agents and potential victims is more difficult to refute, but they do not exclude that the agents really prefer to kill away from home. “This may be due to the supposedly inferior quality of emergency medical services in these regions; due to the relative ease of access to a target’s hotel room during travel; or even due to expected long-haul trips by their targets, during which medical care would be prevented, ”reports Bellingcat. “However, the FSB squad’s observed preference for poisoning ‘outside Moscow’ can be used as a substitute to determine its likely complicity with Moscow-based operations as well. It can be logically assumed – and corroborated by data in the Navalny and Isaev cases – that the squadron normally follows a target of political assassination for at least several months before an attack is launched. “
Since Kara-Murza received treatment for poisoning in the United States, THE Washington Post urged the Biden administration to disclose information about the substance used and whether it was banned, which could open the door to sanctions or more. At the end of last month, the Publish The editorial board wrote that, since the bureau is “investigating this matter as a case of intentional poisoning”, it should disclose the details. “He refused to disclose the results of his laboratory tests, which may show whether Kara-Murza, like Navalny and other Kremlin targets, was attacked with a prohibited chemical weapon.”
THE Publish it also made an unsuccessful petition to members of Congress, including Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), who is a senior member of the intelligence committee who would have access to the details of the matter. “In light of the series of attacks on Kremlin opponents and the imperative to hold the Putin regime accountable, this is not acceptable,” Publish editorial board wrote. “Attorney General Merrick Garland must order the FBI to disclose what it knows about Mr. Kara-Murza.”