DISINFO: Germany could be the real target of intoxication of Navalny; money trails point to the US
SUMMARY
The intoxication of Russian blogger Alexei Navalny has a very clear goal, and in order to know who could be behind it, one only must know who benefits from the event that caused his metabolic disorder, produced by a sharp fall of his blood sugar levels, which the West is promoting as an alleged poisoning. In this match, Germany could be the real target, and the money trail points directly to the US: its defence budget for 2021 includes imposing sanctions to prevent the finalisation of the Nord Stream 2 works, for which there are only 160 kilometres left until its completion.
RESPONSE
This is part of a pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign on the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The claim that Navalny suffered an “intoxication” or a “metabolic disorder” presented now by the West as “an alleged poisoning” is false, since the use of a chemical nerve agent of the Novichok group against the Russian dissident has been established beyond any doubt by a specialist Bundeswehr laboratory. The campaign is following the same playbook that the one deployed after the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daugther in Salisbury in 2018, a case where there is strong evidence of the involvement of Russian intelligence operatives and high-level Russian officials. By claiming that is the US and not Russia who benefits from this incident, pro-Kremlin media are trying to deflect any Russian responsibility for it, a frequent Kremlin tactic. Also, the use of multiple and simultaneous versions of an event involving questionable actions by the Russian government or its allies, in order to confound citizens about the actual truth, is a recurrent pro-Kremlin disinformation strategy, already seen in the cases of the MH17 downing, the illegal annexation of Crimea, the murder attempt against the Skripals or chemical attacks in Syria. See other examples of pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives on Alexei Navalny’s poisoning in our database, such as claims that only caffeine and alcohol were found in his blood, that the US wanted to use it to block Russia's vaccine against coronavirus, that the West hopes that he dies to have an excuse for new sanctions, or that Western accusations about Navalny’s case are as false as they were about Sergei Skripal and Alexander Litvinenko.