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Where Navalny’s Poisoning Is Taking Russia, at Home and Abroad

Rogue Valley

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Where Navalny’s Poisoning Is Taking Russia, at Home and Abroad

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9/9/20
Navalny’s brush with death stands apart even from past assassinations in which the Kremlin was accused of having a hand. Alexander Litvinenko and Sergei Skripal were exiles who were targeted in a foreign land, the UK, and unknown to Russians and foreigners alike before their poisonings. Navalny, by contrast, is well known inside and outside Russia, on whose soil he was attacked, and a figure from Russia’s present — if not its future — rather than its past. As former security service members, Litvinenko and Skripal may have been seen by Russian intelligence as traitors worthy of punishment, whereas Navalny is an opposition politician who operates in the open rather than covertly. Navalny’s poisoning, then, eliminates the distinction previously drawn by Putin between enemies and traitors, the former being deserving of respect. If that line has been erased, it suggests that the regime — certainly its most hardline elements — feels more endangered than ever. The place where Navalny was poisoned — Tomsk, deep inside Russia — renders implausible the claim that he was targeted by Russia’s enemies with the goal of damaging its international standing. And the manner in which he was attacked was sophisticated, unlike the killings of Boris Nemtsov and Anna Politkovskaya, so much so that it cannot be blamed on rogue or overzealous surrogates like the Chechens.

Curiously, Merkel — not Navalny’s doctors, the health minister, or the police — personally announced the diagnosis. The German leader knows full well, as would any chancellor, that her country’s relations with Russia, whatever its behavior, will have to be maintained, if only because Germany is more responsible for the state of Europe than either France or the United States. By personally declaring that Navalny was, in fact, poisoned and suggesting it had something to do with the Russian state, Merkel pre-empted the criticism of her relationship with Putin she knew would come from other Western politicians. As for the material penalties Russia faces, it will be difficult to impose targeted sanctions, as the UK did in response to the Litvinenko and Skripal poisonings, given that the West has not been given any names and is unlikely to be provided with any material evidence. In the cases of Crimea’s annexation and the war in eastern Ukraine, it was clear to all that the Russian state, or major regime elements, was culpable, justifying economic sanctions. Where individual murders are concerned, targeted sanctions are the West’s go-to response. In the case of Navalny’s poisoning, however, the difficulty of identifying the culprits increases the likelihood that broader sanctions will be imposed.

By not cooperating with Berlin, Moscow is almost guaranteeing that Nordstream-2 will be sanctioned rather than specific Russian perpetrators.

Not being very perceptive about its precarious position, Moscow is playing its hand very badly. Perhaps that will change in the days ahead.

Related: After G7 Rebuke, Russia Alleges 'Massive Disinformation' In Navalny Case Aimed At Sanctions 'Hysteria'
 
Assange's lawyers said there was evidence that the US government planned to poison their client at the Ecuadorian embassy.
And it seems that we all know perfectly well the name of the toxic substance that the americans were going to use, and who they were going to blame for it later...
 
The thread is about Navalny in Berlin.

Mr. Stalin is somewhere in Ecuador with Assange.
 
The United States at a meeting of the UN security Council on Syria raised the topic of Navalny. But what he has in common with Syria?! The logical answer would be "nothing". But no, there is a common ground. The chronic idiocy of US representatives, who use any excuse to inflate hysteria around Russia.
 
:roll: More asinine meandering from our Russian propagandist.
 
I was at a circus in Germany yesterday. The magician showed everyone the empty hat, worked his magic on it, but did not get anything out of it, citing state secrets.
 
:roll: More asinine meandering from our Russian propagandist.
 
Of course, Russia isn't judged in a vacuum by the rest of the world. And this thread is partly about how Russia is judged abroad.


My view is that this 'case' makes no difference. Just as the Skripal 'case' made no difference.


Western powers still demonise Russia - no change. But those same states are culpable of monstrous lies used to justify wars such as Iraq, and let's face it, they're quite happy to be in bed with leaders like Salman who is awfully partial to chopping up opponents. Everybody already knows this.

So the rest of the world will continue as before. Navalny is an irrelevance globally. Russia doesn't really care about western opinion. We know you hate us and demand abject surrender.
 
So the rest of the world will continue as before. Navalny is an irrelevance globally.

A Kremlin lie. You are about to get sanctioned once again and perhaps NS-2 terminated because you insist on assassinating Putin opponents.

The Putin regime is a cancer in this world.
 
Masha Pevchikh, a British citizen who met with Navalny and then ran away, not wanting to give evidence to the police, works in the field of biotechnology and is associated with the startup Skinport, which developed microneedles for painless injections. Maria Pevchikh's father is the founder and head of a pair of Biolabs, where there are so many viruses and chemicals that the "Novichok" nervously smokes around the corner.
This is just coincidence!
 
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Assange's lawyers said there was evidence that the US government planned to poison their client at the Ecuadorian embassy.
And it seems that we all know perfectly well the name of the toxic substance that the americans were going to use, and who they were going to blame for it later...

Irrelevant Whataboutism.
 
Of course, Russia isn't judged in a vacuum by the rest of the world. And this thread is partly about how Russia is judged abroad.


My view is that this 'case' makes no difference. Just as the Skripal 'case' made no difference.


Western powers still demonise Russia - no change. But those same states are culpable of monstrous lies used to justify wars such as Iraq, and let's face it, they're quite happy to be in bed with leaders like Salman who is awfully partial to chopping up opponents. Everybody already knows this.

So the rest of the world will continue as before. Navalny is an irrelevance globally. Russia doesn't really care about western opinion. We know you hate us and demand abject surrender.

No need to "demonize" Russia. The facts speak for themselves.
 
A Kremlin lie. You are about to get sanctioned once again

The West's belief in sanctions is utopian. Sanctions are not a resource that is extracted in a mine or ammunition that is assembled in a factory - they are extremely limited and finite. They just can't do anything to Russia anymore, they bark like dogs under a fence out of impotence and fear.
 
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