DISINFO: Navalny case is an outrageous fraud and an anti-Russian campaign
DISINFORMATION CASE DETAILS
  • Outlet: snanews.de (archived)*
  • Date of publication: March 01, 2021
  • Article language(s): German
  • Reported in: Issue 233
  • Countries / regions discussed: Russia, EU, Germany
Tags:
Alexei Navalny novichok Anti-Russian Russophobia West Chemical weapons/attack Destabilising Russia

DISINFO: Navalny case is an outrageous fraud and an anti-Russian campaign

SUMMARY

The Navalny case is an outrageous fraud and an anti-Russian campaign.

The still unexplained attack on Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny on August 20, 2020, has left not only a number of unanswered questions, but also a deeply fractured relationship between Russia and Germany in particular, and, in general, the EU and the West

Even before facts were known, let alone an initial investigation of the incident had taken place, Western politicians and journalists claimed that the "Kremlin critic" had been assassinated with a Russian nerve agent from the Novichok group on the orders of, or at any rate with the knowledge of, Vladimir Putin. This was followed by a wave of indignation and a smear campaign against Russia that has continued to the present day. (...)

The hypocrisy of the anti-Russian campaign of the Berlin political caste and its leading media was made abundantly clear by the fact that no notice was taken of the years of harassment and unlawful imprisonment of the journalist Julian Assange, who was seriously ill as a result.

RESPONSE

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about Alexei Navalny. The claim that Navalny is somehow used for the political destabilisation of Russia is disinformation.

The attack on opposition leader Alexei Navalny on August 20, 2020 is not an anti-Russian campaign and is explained with a lot of evidence.

Alexei Navalny fell ill during a flight and the plane had to make an emergency landing in Omsk, where doctors said he was in a coma and they were trying to save his life. From Omsk, he was transferred to Berlin, where he received treatment at Berlin's Charité Hospital. The German federal government said that toxicological tests provided “unequivocal evidence of a chemical nerve agent of the Novichok group” in the blood samples of Navalny.

In fact, Alexei Navalny was the victim of an attack with a chemical nerve agent, executed in Russia. On 14 September, the German government provided research by two more independent laboratories in France and Sweden, which confirmed the presence of poison from the Novichok group in his body. The same was confirmed by the OPCW (which Russia is also a member of).

On 14 December 2020, a special investigation by Bellingcat, The Insider, CNN and Der Spiegel identified members of the Russian FSB unit involved in the attempt on Navalny’s life. According to The New York Times, the report was also consistent with the information on the case gathered by German intelligence services. Bellingcat also provided a detailed account of the methods used to identify the FSB operatives. A week later, on 21 December, Navalny disclosed a recorded conversation in which a member of the suspected FSB poisoning squad describes how his unit carried out, and attempted to clean up evidence of, his poisoning.

The European Union has sanctioned six individuals and one Russian entity over the use of chemical weapons in an assassination attempt on the Russian opposition figure.

The organisation WikiLeaks, founded by Julian Assange, came to international attention in 2010, after it published a series of leaks provided by US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. After the 2010 leaks, the United States government launched a criminal investigation into WikiLeaks. In the middle of the 2016 US presidential campaign, WikiLeaks published tens of thousands of emails from Democrats, including their presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Also, in 2010, Sweden issued an international arrest warrant for Assange over allegations of sexual assault.

Moreover, Assange produced a political talk show called "The World Tomorrow" with his own company, Quick Roll Productions. The client was Russia's state-owned foreign broadcaster Russia Today (RT), so Assange has often been named an accomplice to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Read similar cases alleging that the West invented Navalny’s poisoning to uphold the myth of an aggressive Russia, that the West fabricated the story about Navalny being poisoned and that Navalny's poisoning was a set up against Russia.

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Disclaimer

Cases in the EUvsDisinfo database focus on messages in the international information space that are identified as providing a partial, distorted, or false depiction of reality and spread key pro-Kremlin messages. This does not necessarily imply, however, that a given outlet is linked to the Kremlin or editorially pro-Kremlin, or that it has intentionally sought to disinform. EUvsDisinfo publications do not represent an official EU position, as the information and opinions expressed are based on media reporting and analysis of the East Stratcom Task Force.

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