Was Navalny killed with KGB ‘heart punch’?
ALEXEI Navalny was likely to have been killed by a single punch to the heart, it has been reported.
The deadly technique was once the ‘hallmark’ of the Soviet-era KGB’s special forces operatives.
Former exile Vladimir Osechkin, founder of the human rights group Gulagu.net, said bruising on the 47-year-old’s body was consistent with the assassination method, citing a source at the Arctic penal colony where Mr Navalny was serving 19 years.
Mr Osechkin claimed Mr Navalny had been forced to spend between two-and-a-half to four hours in an open-air solitary confinement space, where temperatures could dip to minus 27C, the day before his death.
Prisoners are normally kept outdoors for no more than an hour in far less extreme conditions.
Mr Osechkin said: ‘I think they first destroyed his body by keeping him out in the cold for a long time and slowing the blood circulation down to a minimum. Then it becomes very easy to kill someone, within seconds, if the operative has experience in this.
‘It is an old method of the KGB’s special forces divisions. They trained their operatives to kill a man with one punch in the heart, in the centre of the body. It was a hallmark of the KGB.’
The KGB has since been replaced by the FSB security service. Russian authorities have failed to give a convincing explanation for the opposition leader’s death last Friday. His family has been told they cannot have access to his body for another two weeks.
Mr Osechkin added: ‘From what I know from my sources, it was prepared several days in advance. It was a command from Moscow.’
The X account of Mr Navalny’s widow Yulia – who accuses the Kremlin of murder – was briefly suspended yesterday for allegedly ‘violating [its] rules’ on political impartiality. But it was reinstated following online criticism.
‘It is an old method of the special forces’