Putin’s rival was poisoned
Doctors in Germany give Navalny an antidote used for nerve agent attacks
‘An execution or assassination bid’
THE Kremlin critic in a coma after falling ill on a flight was poisoned, German doctors said last night.
Russian medics had insisted they could find no traces of poison in Alexei Navalny but doctors in Berlin said clinical results proved otherwise.
They were unable to say exactly what had poisoned Vladimir Putin’s nemesis but Mr Navalny was last night given the antidote atropine, a medication used to treat certain types of nerve agent and pesticide poisonings.
The Charite hospital, where Mr Navalny, 44, arrived via air ambulance on Saturday three days after he collapsed, said the poison was from ‘the group of cholinesterase inhibitors’.
Examples of these include deadly chemical weapons such as sarin, used in two Japanese terror attacks in the 1990s, and VX, used to kill the half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in 2017. They can also be found in Alzheimer’s medication and treatments used by gardeners.
But Leonid Volkov, a senior aide to Mr Navalny, tweeted last night: ‘The world’s most famous cholinesterase inhibitor is Novichok.’ This was the nerve agent used in the Salisbury poisoning of Russian double agent Sergei Skripal.
Doctors who saved the lives of Mr Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, in 2018 also treated them with atropine.
Mr Navalny, founder of Russia’s AntiCorruption Foundation, fell ill last Thursday after drinking a cup of black tea before boarding a flight home from Tomsk in Siberia to Moscow.
It was reported yesterday that there was ‘extensive’ government surveillance of his trip to Siberia, where his every move was shadowed and recorded.
German chancellor Angela Merkel demanded last night that those responsible be identified and held accountable.
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former British Army officer who commanded the Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Regiment, said: ‘It seems most likely it’s a nerve agent of some sort which has poisoned Mr Navalny. They are generally liquid – so somebody could have contaminated his tea at the airport – and are generally very toxic, even in small doses.’
Charite hospital said in a statement: ‘The specific substance involved remains unknown and a further series of comprehensive testing has been initiated.
‘The effect of the poison – namely, the inhibition of cholinesterase in the body – was confirmed by multiple tests in independent laboratories.’
Cholinesterase inhibitors react with and prevent the breakdown of a chemical in the body called acetylcholine. This creates a blockage in the nerves, causing diarrhoea, vomiting, sweating, diminished mental function and ultimately leading to paralysis and respiratory arrest.
Mr Navalny is in a serious condition but there is ‘currently no acute danger to his life’, the hospital added. It could not say whether he would have any lasting issues.
Steffen Seibert, a German government spokesman, said police would remain stationed outside Charite as a ‘protective precaution’, given the circumstances of Mr Navalny’s hospitalisation.
Mr de Bretton-Gordon said the incident appeared to be an ‘execution or assassination’ attempt but noted that if the Kremlin was behind it, it was ‘strange’ that Mr Navalny had been allowed to leave for Germany at the weekend. He was initially treated in Siberia when his plane had to make an emergency landing.
‘It is not surprising that the Germans have detected cholinesterases – they stay in the system long enough to be picked up even after a few days if the laboratory has sufficient expertise,’ said Mr de Bretton-Gordon.
‘In some Alzheimer’s drugs, cholinesterase inhibitors are used to slow the decay of nerve cells. But it is unlikely that at the age of 44, Mr Navalny could have cause to have a medication like this and have accidentally overdosed.’
He said it was also possible that Mr Navalny had been poisoned with an organophosphate of the kind found in pesticides and insecticides, and from which nerve agents were developed.
Mr de Bretton-Gordon added: ‘When one looks at the modus operandi of the Russian state and the threats made in the past by
Putin, this doesn’t look good for the Russian government.’
Fellow nerve agent expert and army veteran Dan Kaszeta tweeted: ‘Lethality may even not be an intended outcome. Sometimes these things are meant for intimidation.’
Allies of Mr Navalny said the tea he had before his flight was the only thing drink he had consumed that day and must have been contaminated. They have blamed President Putin and believe the Kremlin was also behind the delay in transferring Mr Navalny to Germany for specialist treatment.
Doctors in Omsk, Siberia, insisted last night that two laboratories had found no poisonous substances in his system.
Mrs Merkel said in view of the findings and his ‘prominent role in the political opposition in Russia, authorities there are called upon urgently to investigate this crime…
Those responsible must be identified and held accountable.’
Mr Navalny’s spokesman, Kira Yarmysh, pointed out that his team had insisted he had been poisoned ‘from the very beginning, despite statements of the Omsk doctors and state propagandists’.
She added: ‘Now our words have been confirmed by tests in independent laboratories. Navalny’s poisoning is no longer a hypothesis, it’s a fact.’