8/26/20
After several days of speculation, doctors at Berlin’s Charité hospital, where Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny was flown from the Siberian city of Omsk after collapsing on board a flight last week, finally confirmed on August 24 that he does indeed appear to have been poisoned. While doctors attempt to identify the substance used, the Kremlin is acting as though nothing is happening, while Navalny’s entourage is convinced that he has fallen victim to a plot by the Russian state. It may take months or even years to establish exactly what happened, but the attack on Navalny is in itself a grave symptom that points to the erosion of the security resources of President Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Navalny remains the most prominent non-systemic opposition figure in Russia, and as such has been thwarted by the regime in his attempts to run for president, register a political party, and obtain permission to hold rallies. The version of events circulating that Putin personally ordered “a solution to the Navalny problem” looks doubtful. Sure, the Kremlin may consider Navalny an adventurist rather than a politician, but he doesn’t fall into the category of traitor, unlike fellow poisoning victims Alexander Litvinenko and Sergei Skripal.
Another version — that Navalny has been neutralized ahead of upcoming regional elections — is problematic for similar reasons. First, the people in charge of the elections are not involved in poisonings: they have other methods of waging political warfare. Amateur sleuths have already divided Navalny’s possible poisoners into two groups. The first consists of the subjects of his investigations: people who were either seeking revenge or wanted to put a stop to his revelations. The second is people who might volunteer to assist the regime. Much has been said about the gradual erosion of the Russian state’s monopoly on the use of force. But if a previous attack on Navalny, in which antiseptic dye was thrown in his face, was carried out by extremists from the nationalist fringe group SERB, the current poisoning appears to be a far more complex and resource-intensive operation. What’s more, it was carried out right under the nose of the Federal Security Service (FSB), which has eyes on Navalnyat all times. Players on the informal market of pro-regime “protection services” are increasingly plying their trade on the turf of the state security services. Plus, the use of poisoning as a means of punishment shows clearly that the person who ordered the attack isn’t just close to power, but has access to tools that are primarily the preserve of the security services.